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A SYSTEM OF ETHICS 



.... And hence virtue would be, as it were, the health and beauty 
and harmony of the soul ; vice, however, disease and ugliness and 
weakness. Plato. 

.... Accordingly, the highest good of man consists in the exercise 
of the virtues and excellences of the soul, especially of the highest 
and most perfect. Aristotle. 

Virtue is nothing but action in accordance with one's own nature ; 
and there is nothing which excels it in dignity and worth. 

Spinoza. 

And therefore virtue is the good and vice the evil for every one. 

Shaftesbury. 



SYSTEM OF ETHICS 

BY 

FRIEDRICH PAULSEN 

PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN 

IE often ano tftranslateti 

1VITH THE AUTHOR'S SANCTION, FROM THE FOURTK 
REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION 

BY 

FRANK THILLY 

FKOFE8SOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY 
OF MISSOURI 



CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON 



-93 



Copyright, 1899, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Printed in the United States of America 
G 



bvM 





j 

OP 
ri 

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 



Of all the treatises on ethics that have appeared in recent 
years, none is, in my opinion, so admirably fitted for intro- 
ducing the beginner to this study as the remarkable work of 
Professor Paulsen which I here present to the English-speak- 
ing public in their native tongue. As the author expressly 
declares, the book was not written for philosophical experts, 
but for all those who are interested in the problems of prac- 
tical philosophy, and who are in need of some one to guide 
them in solving the same. It discusses the fundamental 
questions of ethics in a manner that cannot fail to attract the 
student and encourage him to reflect upon moral matters, 
which is, after all, the greatest service that any book can 
hope to render him. Many of our ethical treatises have a 
tendency to repel the average intelligent reader and to deaden 
instead of quickening his thought ; they make him feel that 
the subjects under discussion have absolutely no connection 
with life, at least, not with his life ; they often speak to him of 
things about which he knows nothing and cares less, in lan- 
guage which he cannot understand. This is a misfortune, for 
if any science has a message to deliver to the people of our 
country and age, it is certainly the science of conduct 

Professor Paulsen divides his work into four books. The 
first traces the historical development of the conceptions of 
life and moral philosophy from the times of the Greeks down 
to the present, and is one of the ablest and most fascinating 
surveys of the subject ever written. The second examines 



VI TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 

the fundamental questions of ethics and answers them in 
a manner indicating the author's clearness of vision and 
soundness of judgment. The third, which is full of prac- 
tical wisdom, applies these principles to our daily conduct 
and defines the different virtues and duties. The fourth 
book is sociological and political in its nature, and deals 
with the "Forms of Social Life." The healthy common- 
sense pervading the entire work and its freedom from exag- 
gerations cannot but win the admiration of the reader. 

Owing to a desire on the part of the publishers not to in- 
crease the dimensions of this volume beyond a reasonable 
limit, I have translated only the first three of the books, 
leaving out, for the present, the " Umriss einer Staats- und 
Gesellschaf tslehre. " I have also omitted the seventh and 
eighth sections of the sixth chapter in Book III., which dis- 
cuss the duel, in order still further to diminish the size of 
the translation, and because, in my belief, the subject does 
not have the same interest for us Americans as for the 
Germans. 

My translation is from the fourth German edition which 
has been revised and increased. I have added notes and 
bibliographical references whenever they seemed desirable; 
they will be found in square brackets. 

In conclusion, I cannot refrain from expressing to Pro- 
fessor Paulsen my sincere thanks for the encouragement and 
help he has given me during the progress of this work. 

FRANK THILLY. 
Columbia, Mo., March, 189y, 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
TO THE AMERICAN EDITION 



In responding to the request of my friend Frank Thilly to 
speed this book on its journey, I feel impelled, first of all, 
to express to him my hearty thanks for his kindness in 
presenting my Ethics to his fellow-countrymen in their 
native tongue, a service which he has already performed for 
my Introduction to Philosophy. 

From my earliest youth I have had the feeling that a 
people closely akin to us dwelt beyond the ocean. This 
feeling was, perhaps, first aroused by the fact that not a few 
of the companions of my youth had found a new home on 
the other side ; in my native land, Schleswig-Holstein, from 
which the Anglo-Saxons once sailed westward over the sea, 
the migration to the West still continues. Since then the 
years have woven many new bonds of union. And so it is 
now a special source of pleasure to me, also, as an author, to 
come into closer contact with the great nation which has 
shown such remarkable energy in establishing itself in the 
new world. 

It is my earnest wish that this book may also contribute 
a little to strengthen the ties of spiritual fellowship unit- 
ing the two kindred peoples. We Germans well know, and 
gratefully confess, that no nation of the earth more deeply 
appreciates and more thoroughly understands the products of 
German thought than the United States of North America. 

FRIEDRICH PAULSEN. 

Berlin-Steglitz, September 27, 1898. 



PREFACE TO THE FIRST GERMAN EDITION 



Ich glaube nicht dass ich viel eignes neues lehre, 

Noch durch meiu ScherfLein Witz den Schatz der Weisheit mehre, 

Doch denk' ich von der Muh > mir zweierlei Gewinn ; 

Einmal, dass ich nun selbst an Einsicht weiter bin ; 

Sodann, dass doch dadurch an manchen Mann wird kommen 

Manches, wovon er sonst gar hatte nichts vernommen. 

Und auch der dritte Grund scheint wert nicht des Gelachters : 

Dass, wer dies Blichlein liest, derweil doch liest kein schlechters, 

— RUCKERT. 



FROM THE PREFACE TO THE SECOND 
GERMAN EDITION 



The second edition of this work, which has been so kindly 
received by a large circle of readers, embraces, in the main, 
the same contents as the first ; I have, however, so far as I 
was able, made improvements here and there. The second 
book, especially, has been worked over ; I hope that the fun- 
damental concepts have gained somewhat in definiteness, and 
that the entire treatment has been somewhat rounded out. 
Perhaps this will make it a little easier for some of the 
critics to understand the conception of life and its values 
on which my system is based. 

This new edition, however, is still open to the objection, 
which has been repeatedly urged against me, that the treat- 
ment of the fundamental questions is much less searching 
and thorough, while the questions of the day receive more 
attention than they deserve in a philosophical treatise. I 
have not been able to make up my mind to enter upon a more 
detailed discussion of the principles, because I do not believe 
that great prolixity in these matters will do any one much 
good. The philosophers, of course, have long ago worked out 
their own principles ; to the readers, however, who do not lay 
claim to this title, the significance and fitness of the funda- 
mental notions will be proved more easily by the ability of the 
latter to explain particular cases and to solve concrete prob- 
lems. I have been equally unwilling to ignore the questions 
which are moving our age ; the books that have nothing to 
say to their times, and therefore fill their pages with un- 



x FROM THE PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 

timely logical quibbles, or with endless historical-critical 
discussions, are plentiful enough as it is, and there has, thus 
far, never been a lack of tiresome books in Germany. There 
are books that are timeless because they are written for all 
times; but there are also timeless books which are written 
for no time. This book does not belong to the first class, 
nor would it like to belong to the second. 

And now that I have begun to make confessions, let me 
confess further that this book was not written for philoso- 
phers at all ; God forbid that I should presume to think 
for people who are already overburdened with thoughts. I 
had in mind readers who have, in some way or other, been 
stimulated to meditate upon the problems of life, and are 
looking for some one to guide them, or, if that sounds too 
presumptuous, for some one to discuss these questions with 
them. Should any such take up this book and not lay it aside 
disappointed, the author's ambition will have been thoroughly 
realized. Besides, I do not believe that a new system of moral 
philosophy is either necessary or possible ; the great construc- 
tive principles have already been so thoroughly developed by 
Greek philosophy that they are, in the main, satisfactory even 
to-day. To bring the old truth into living touch with the ques- 
tions which preoccupy our age, is, in my opinion, the most 
important function of a modern ethics. Nor do I believe 
that I am mistaken in the assumption that this view is some- 
what widespread in our times. Perhaps there has never been 
so little disagreement concerning the problem and principles 
of moral philosophy since the days of Christian Wolff as 
exists at present. 

Let me here briefly outline the conception towards which 
the thought of the age seems to be tending; I call it the 
teleologicjil view. It is limited and defined by a double anti- 
thesis. On the one side, by hedonistic utilitarianism, which 
teaches that pleasure is the thing of absolute worth, to which 
virtue and morality are related as means. In opposition to 



FROM THE PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xi 

this, teleological ethics contends that not the feeling of 
pleasure, but the objective content of life itself, which is 
experienced with pleasure, is the thing of worth. Pleasure 
is the form in which the subject becomes immediately aware 
of the object and its value, Intuitionalistic formalism is the 
other antithesis. This regards the observance of a system 
of a priori rules, of the moral laws, as the thing of absolute 
worth. In opposition to this, teleological ethics contends 
that the thing of absolute worth is not the observance of 
the moral laws, but the substance which is embraced in 
these formulas, the human historical life which fills the 
outline with an infinite wealth of manifold concrete forms ; 
that the moral laws exist for the sake of life, not life for 
the sake of the moral laws. 

This is the form which Aristotle, the founder of ethics as 
a systematic science, originally gave to it. This conception 
controlled the entire Greek thought, and modern ethics too 
adhered to it, until it was overthrown by Kant's great reaction 
in favor of a formalistic intuitionalism. Teleological ethics, 
however, at once found an eloquent and warm defender against 
formal moralism in Schiller, and in a certain sense Specula- 
tive Philosophy also returned to the old view. At present 
this science is again turning into the old channels under the 
influence of the modern biological conceptions. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



INTRODUCTION 

Paob 
Nature and Function of Ethics 1 

1. Definition (1) — 2. Position in the System of Sciences (1) — 8. 
Function (4) — 4. Method (6) — 5. Moral Law and Natural 
Law (13) — 6. Concept of Perfection (17) — 7. In what Sense 
Universal Validity may be Predicated of Morality (19) — 8. 
Practical Value of Ethics (25). 



BOOK I 

OUTLINE OF A HISTORY OF THE CONCEPTIONS OF LIFE AND 
MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

CHAPTER I 

The Conception op Life and Moral Philosophy among 
the Greeks S3 

1. The Greek People's Conception of the Value of Life (35) — 
2. Socrates (3 9)— 3. Plato (41) — 4. Aristotle (48)-— 5. Stoics 
(53) — 6. Epicureans (56) — 7. Common Characteristics of Greek 
Ethics (58). 

CHAPTER n 

The Christian Conception of Life 65 

1. Christianity is Supernaturalistic (65) — 2. Its Contempt for Learn- 
ing (67) — 3. for the Natural Virtues (68) — 4. for Courage (69) 
— 5. for Justice (71) — 6. Its Relation to the State (72) — 7. to 
Enjoyment and Art (74) — 8. to Wealth (77) — 9. to Honor (78) 
— 10. Mercy, the Christian Virtue (81) — 11. Christianity aad 



xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Page 

Family-Life (84) — 12. The Eternal Life (87)— 13. The Liberal- 
istic Conception of Christianity (89). 

CHAPTER III 
The Conversion of the Old World to Christianity ... 98 

I. The Old World's Opinion of Christianity (98) — 2. Cause of the 
Change : Decline of Ancient Morality in the Roman Empire (100) 

— 3. The Moral Self-consciousness of the Imperial Period : Epic- 
tetus, Marcus Aurelius, Neo-Platonism (106) — 4. Craving for 
a Religion of Redemption (110) — 5. Superiority of Christianity 
(112) — 6. Analogous Development in the Hindoo World (113). 

CHAPTER IV 

The Middle Ages and their Conception of Life . . . .116 

1. The Conversion of the Germanic Nations (116) — 2. Mood and 
Mode of Life (118) — 3. The Clergy (119) — 4. Historical 
Necessity on Part of the Church to Assimilate the World (121). 

CHAPTER V 
The Modern Conception of Life .... 126 

1. Characteristics of the Modern Era (126) — 2. Renaissance (127) 

— 3. Reformation (129) — 4. The Love of Knowledge (135) — 
5. Francis Bacon and his Dream of the Future (137) — 6. R. Des- 
cartes and his Programme of Civilization (140) — 7. The Modern 
Science of the State: Thomas Hobbes (143) — 8. Leibniz (144) — 
9. The Self-satisfaction of the Modern Era (145) — 10. The 
Nineteenth Century : Pessimism, Nietzscheanism (147) — 11. 
Relation to Christianity (155). 

CHAPTER VI 
Mediaeval and Modern Moral Philosophy 169 

1. Theological Moral Philosophy (169)— 2. Catholic Moral Theology 
(172) — 3. Modern Moral Philosophy; Thomas Hobbes (179) — 
4. Spinoza (181) — 5. Shaftesbury (185) — 6. Hume, Bentham, 
Mill, Spencer (189) — 7. Leibniz, Wolff (193) — 8. Kant (194) 

— 9. Goethe, Schiller (201) — 10. Speculative Philosophy (203) 

— 11. Schleiermacher (205) — 12. Herbart (208) — 13. Scho- 
penhauer (209). 



TABLE OF CONTENTS XT 



BOOK II 

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS AND QUESTIONS OF PRINCIPLE 

Paob 
Metaphysical and Psychological Introduction 219 

CHAPTER I 
Good and Bad: Teleological and Formalistic Conceptions . 222 

1. Possible Conceptions (222) — 2. The Teleological Conception (224) 

— 3. Subjective-formal and Objective-material Judgment (226) — 
4. The End Justifies the Means (233) — 5. The Importance of 
the Particular Act (240) — 6. Provisional Repudiation of Egoism 
(243) — 7. Summary (248). 

CHAPTER II 

The Highest Good : Hedonistic and Energistic Conceptions . 251 

1. Critique of Hedonism : Pleasure not the End of Action (251) — 2. 
A Modified Form of the Hedonistic Theory (258) — 3. Signifi- 
cance of Pleasure from the Biological Standpoint (264) — 4. 
Pleasure not the Criterion of Judgments of Value (268) — 5. 
Positive Definition of the Highest Good (270) — 6. Histor- 
ical Confirmation (273) — 7. Further Remarks (275) — 8. 
An Objection (283). 

CHAPTER III 
Pessimism 28? 

1. Pessimism as a Mood and a Theory (287) — 2. Hedonistic Argu- 
ment (289) — 3. Moralistic Argument (297) — 4. The Historical- 
Philosophical Argument in the Hedonistic Sense (308) — 5. in 
the Moralistic Sense (314) — 6. Summary (318). 

CHAPTER IV 

The Evil, the Bad, and Theodicy 821 

1. Theodicy (321)— 2. Physical Evil (322) — 3. Moral Evil (325) 

— 4. Consequences (332) — 5. Death (335). 

CHAPTER V 
Duty and Conscience 340 

I. Origin of the Feeling of Duty (340) — 2. Relation between Duty 
and Inclination (346) — 3. Critique of the Kantian View (350) 



XVI TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Pa©« 

— 4. Further Errors of the A-prioristic-intuitionalistic Moral Phil- 
osophy (355) — 5. Conscience (363) — 6. Individualization of 
Conscience (368) — 7. Moral Nihilism (373) — 8. The Popular 
Usage of Language (377). 

CHAPTER VI 
Egoism and Altruism 379 

1. No Absolute Opposition (379) — 2. The Effects of so-called Egoistic 
and Altruistic Acts (383) — 3. and their Motives Overlap (386) 

— 4. Our Judgment of Egoistic and Altruistic Acts (391) — 5. 
Relation to the Evolutionistic Theory (394). 

CHAPTER VII 
Virtue and Happiness 400 

1. Effect of Conduct on Welfare (400) — 2. Effect of Welfare on 
Character (407). 

CHAPTER VIII 

Relation of Morality to Religion ... 415 

1. Hiatorical Connection, its Causes and Effects (415) — 2. Neces- 
sary Inner Connection (421) — 3. Relation between Religion and 
Science (425) —4. Cause of Unbelief (433) — 5. The Belief in 
Immortality (439) — 6. Objections (446). 

CHAPTER IX 

The Freedom of the Will 452 

1. Historical Orientation (452) — 2. Presentation of the Facts (457) — 
3. Responsibility (460) — 4. The True Meaning of Human Free- 
dom (467). 



BOOK III 

THE DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

CHAPTER I 
Virtues and Vices in General , . 475 

CHAPTER II 

The Education of the Will and the Discipline of the 
Feelings, or Self-Control 483 

1. Self-control (483) — 2. Temperance ; Asceticism (485) — 3. Mod- 
esty (491) — 4. Courage (495) — 5. Independence, Perseverance, 
Patience (498) — 6. Equanimity (500) — 7. Wisdom (503). 



TABLE OF CONTENTS xrii 

CHAPTER III 

Pag* 
Bodily Life 505 

1. Its Purpose (505) — 2. Nourishment ; Drunkenness (506) — 

3. Domicile, Clothing (515)— 4. Play and Work (519). 

CHAPTER IV 
Economic Life 529 

1. Teleological Necessity of the Calling (529) — 2. Duty to the Com- 
munity (533) — 3. Avarice and Prodigality (536) — 4. Poverty 
and Wealth (540). 

CHAPTER V 
Spiritual Life and Culture 54S 

1. Nature and Import of Knowledge (543) — 2. Culture, Super-cul- 
ture, Half-culture (547) — 3. Nature and Import of Art (556) — 

4. Present Position of Art (559). 

CHAPTER VI 
Honor and the Love of Honor 569 

1. Nature of Honor (569) — 2. Its Significance for Moral Develop- 
ment (571) — 3. The Love of Honor as Pride (573) — 4. The 
Love of Honor as Humility (576) — 5. Self-confidence and Self- 
knowledge (578)— -6. Modesty (581). 

CHAPTER VII 
Suicide 584 

1. The Facts (584) — 2. How we Judge the Facts (586) — 3. The 
Causes (590). 

CHAPTER VIII 
Compassion and Benevolence 592 

1. Compassion (592) — 2. Benevolence (599). 

CHAPTER IX 
Justice 599 

1. Nature and Natural Foundation of Justice (599) — 2. Its Signi- 
ficance (602)— 3. Need of a Positive Legal Order (603) — 
4. Punishment and the Right of Punishment (606) — 5. Duty to 



xriu TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Pag* 

Defend the Rights of Others and of Self (613) — 6. Magnanimity 
and Forgiveness (616) — 7. The Principle of Rights (624) — 8. 
Incongruity between Law and Morality; Necessary Wrongs (627) 

— 9. The Law Falls short of the Demands of Morality (633). 

CHAPTER X 
Love of Neighbor 688 

1. Definition and Limitations of the Duty (638) — 2. Almsgiving (641) 

— 3. Selfishness (648) — 4. Significance of Love of Neighbor 
(652) — 5. Gratitude (655) — 6. Love of Home, of Country, of 
Humanity (656). 

CHAPTER XI 
Veracity 664 

1. Negative Aspect: the Lie (664)— 2. Why Condemned (666) — 
3. Calumny, Flattery, Hypocrisy, Perjury (669) — 4. Lie of 
Necessity (672) — 5. Why this Rigorism? (681) — 6. Positive 
Aspect: Veracity in Relation to the Individual (685) — 7. The 
Public Communication of the Truth (688) — 8. Why the New 
Truths are Persecuted (690) — 9. In how far this is Necessary 
(695) — 10. Is the Destruction of Error under all Circumstances 
a Duty ? (698). 



rNDEX . * , 8 ,.'..'• 711 



INTRODUCTION — NATURE AND FUNCTION 
OF ETHICS 

1. Ethics is, according to the Greek signification of the 
term, a science of customs or morals (Sitten). 

There are two forms of a scientific treatment of morals : the 
historical-anthropological and the practical. The first we 
find, for example, in Herodotus and in Herbert Spencer's 
Descriptive Sociology. It investigates and describes the cus- 
toms of different peoples and times ; we might call it etho- 
graphy. The second inquires into the worth of human customs 
and modes of behavior ; its object is to guide us in the proper 
conduct of life. The Greeks applied the term ethics to inves- 
tigations of the latter kind. It was Aristotle who gave to 
this science its name and systematic form. — The following 
introductory remarks will endeavor to define provisionally the 
nature of such a science. 

2. All scientific discussions may be divided into two classes : 
theoretical and practical, theories and technologies, sciences 
proper and arts. The former aim at knowledge, the latter 
seek to control things by human action, they tell us how to 
make the world subservient to our purposes. 

According to the above definition, ethics belongs to the 
practical sciences ; its function is to show how human life as 
such must be fashioned to realize its purpose or end. Conse- 
quently, it stands at the head of the practical sciences, em- 
bracing them all in a certain measure, for all arts ultimately 
serve a common purpose : the perfection of human life. This 
is as true of the art of shipbuilding and commerce as of the 
art of education and government. Hence, the corresponding 



2 INTRODUCTION 

arts are subordinated to ethics, the theory of the art of life, 
or included as its parts. 

All practical sciences are based on theories. They are 
merely the application of theoretical truths to the solution 
of practical problems. The theoretical science to which ethics 
bears this relation is the science of man, anthropology and 
psychology. Presupposing a knowledge of human nature and 
the conditions of human life, ethics undertakes to answer the 
question : What forms of social life and what modes of indi- 
vidual conduct are favorable or unfavorable to the perfection 
of human nature ? A comparison with another practical 
science will make the relation clear. The function of medi- 
cine is to teach men the physician's art ; and the object of this 
art is to aid the body in reaching its perfect development, to 
bring about favorable conditions, to ward off dangers, to 
remove disturbances ; dietetics and therapeutics together per- 
form this function. Physical anthropology forms the theoret- 
ical basis of medicine. We may, therefore, say : Ethics bears 
the same relation to general anthropology as medicine to 
physical anthropology. Based on the knowledge of corporeal 
nature, medicine instructs us to solve the problems of cor- 
poreal life, to the end that the body may perform all its func- 
tions in a healthy manner during its natural existence ; while 
ethics, basing itself on the knowledge of human nature in 
general, especially of its spiritual and social side, aims to 
solve all the problems of life so that it may reach' its fullest, 
most beautiful, and most perfect development. We might, 
therefore, call ethics universal dietetics, to which medicine 
and all the other technologies, like pedagogy, politics, etc., 
are related as special parts, or as auxiliary sciences. With 
this view the founder of systematic moral philosophy, Aris- 
totle, wholly agrees. 

A remark will not be out of place here. It is easy to see 
that the arts are not really new, independent sciences. Science 
deals with the nature of things. The fact that objects may 



NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 3 

be modified by our action does not constitute a special phage 
of their nature. Science might, therefore, confine itself to 
calling attention to this in occasional interspersed remarks ; 
physics might, for example, in discussing the subject of steam, 
add the following note : Such and such particular properties 
of gases enable us to utilize them as motors. The technolo- 
gies would thus be inserted into the theories as corollaries. 

If human beings were essentially theoretical beings, they 
might, perhaps, be satisfied with such a procedure. But such 
is not the case ; they are, rather, pre-eminently practical or 
volitional beings. The practical problems are earlier and more 
important than the theoretical problems. The sciences, we 
may say, without going far amiss, have been invented to solve 
problems ; knowledge is, at least in its first beginnings, a 
means to practical ends. Thus> anatomy and physiology are 
means to the art of healing ; geometry, as the name indicates, 
a means to the surveyor's art. Similarly, philosophy, or 
the universal theoretical science, owes its origin to the ques- 
tion concerning the meaning and object of life. Yes, we may 
go still farther and say : The ultimate motive impelling men 
to meditate upon the nature of the universe will always be the 
desire to reach some conclusion concerning the meaning, the 
source, and the goal of their own lives. The origin and end 
of all philosophy is consequently to be sought in ethics. 

The priority of the practical sciences is shown in a remark- 
able way by the form which scientific instruction has assumed 
on its highest stage. Our university sciences are absolutely 
governed by practical ends. The medical sciences do not 
really form a systematic science ; they are united by a prac- 
tical aim : the medical faculty is a technical training school 
for physicians. It draws all such theoretical sciences into the 
sphere of its instruction as it regards essential and useful to 
the technical training of its students. In this way, physiology 
and anatomy, which, in a classification based on purely theo- 
retical principles, would, of course, be grouped under the 



4 INTRODUCTION 

natural sciences, under the title biology, came into the faculty 
of medicine. The same is true of jurisprudence and theology. 
Neither of these is a special, independent science ; the fac- 
ulties of law and theology are technical training schools, the 
former for judges and officials, the latter for preachers and 
spiritual advisers ; and whatever knowledge is required by the 
members of these professions, they draw upon and make sub- 
servient to their goal. A purely theoretical classification of 
the sciences would place all these subjects either under the 
head of history or philosophy. The question as to what was 
or is the law in any particular country belongs to history, as 
well as the question concerning the essence or the historical 
development of a particular religion. The question, however, 
concerning the nature of law in general and its significance for 
human conduct belongs to practical philosophy ; the question 
concerning the nature of God and the constitution of the uni- 
verse, to metaphysics. — We have here an illustration of the 
truth that knowledge exists for the sake of life, not life for 
the sake of knowledge. 

3. Let me add a few further statements concerning the 
function and method of ethics. 

It has a double function to perform : to determine the end 
of life, or the highest good, and to point out the way, or the 
means, of realizing it. 

It is the business of the doctrine of goods {Guterlehre) to 
establish the goal, or the highest good. It will, to forestall 
the contents of a subsequent chapter, regard as the highest 
good, stating it in a general formula, a 'perfect life, that is, a 
life leading to the complete development of the bodily and 
mental powers and to their full exercise in all the spheres of 
human existence, in close communion with other closely 
related persons, and fully participating in the historical and 
spiritual life of society at large. The term welfare ( Wohl- 
fahrt) may also be employed to designate this goal, — which 
would suggest the subjective element involved in it, or the 



NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 5 

fact that such a life yields satisfaction ( Wohlgefuhl). Here, 
however, we must guard against the misconception that this 
feeling of satisfaction or pleasure is what gives life its real 
worth. The feeling is not the good, bat the form in which 
the good is known and enjoyed by the subject. 

The other function of ethics is to show by what inner quali- 
ties and modes of conduct the highest good, or the perfect 
life, is attained and realized. This problem is solved in the 
doctrine of virtues and the doctrine of duties (Tugend- und 
Pflichtenlehre). The doctrine of duties describes in general 
formulae how we must conduct ourselves in order successfully 
to solve the problems of life, that is, attain to perfection. 
The doctrine of virtues sets forth how we must fashion the 
character, or the will, in order to realize that goal : it makes 
clear to us that prudence, courage, justice, veracity, are quali- 
ties which enable us correctly to solve the problems of life, 
while their opposites, thoughtlessness, cowardice, and pleasure- 
seeking, inconsiderate selfishness and base mendacity, hinder 
the realization of the perfect life. 

Here, however, we must at once call attention to an im- 
portant fact. The means employed to realize the perfect life 
are not merely external, technical means, having no inde- 
pendent value, but they are at the same time parts of its con- 
tent. Just as the means of dietetics, work and exercise, rest 
and sleep, as functions of life, at the same time form constit- 
uents of bodily life, so the virtues and their exercise form 
the contents of the perfect life. Or, to use a different illus- 
tration : Each part in a good poem is a means of expressing 
and unfolding the whole, otherwise it would be a superfluous 
episode ; and, conversely, every means also necessarily forms 
a part of the poem itself and as such possesses its own poetic 
value. So, too, everything in moral life is both a means and 
a part of the end, something that exists for its own sake and 
for the sake of the whole. The virtues have absolute worth 
as phases of the perfect man, but they are at the same time 



6 INTRODUCTION 

valuable as means, in so far as the perfect life is realized 
through them. In both cases, however, a difference may be 
noted. Not all the parts of a work of art have the same 
value when compared with the purpose underlying it, nor are 
the different virtues equally important as means of realizing 
the perfect life. Similarly, the different duties may be graded 
according to their importance. 

4. Let us now inquire into the method of ethics. What is 
the source of its knowledge ? How does it prove the truth of 
its propositions ? 

It is customary to distinguish between empirical and ra- 
tional knowledge. The latter, of which mathematics is the 
prototype, deduces propositions from definitions and axioms, 
and demonstrates them logically ; that is, it shows that they 
follow as necessary consequences from the principles. Em- 
pirical sciences, on the other hand, like physics and chemistry, 
observe facts and reduce them to general formulae, which 
aim to express the uniformity in the behavior of things ; 
such formulas we call causal laws. The proof of the truth of 
these propositions does not consist in showing their logical 
connection with certain presupposed definitions, but in point- 
ing out that they adequately express an observed causal 
connection. 

It seems to me to be an indisputable fact that ethics resem- 
bles the natural sciences, rather than mathematics, in its 
method. It does not deduce and demonstrate propositions 
from concepts, but discovers the relations which exist be- 
tween facts, and which may be established by experience. 
Such and such a mode of conduct has such and such an 
effect ; that is the general form of its argument. Or, to state 
it in the converted form in which the causal connections are 
expressed in all practical or technical sciences : In order to 
produce or prevent such and such results, such and such 
means are necessary. Quod in contemplatione instar causae^ 
id in operatione instar regulae, says Bacon ; the causal law 



NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 7 

becomes a practical rule. But the correctness of the rule is 
proved by the causal connection ; and causal connections are 
ascertained by experience alone. Experience proves that 
cleanliness, exercise, fresh air, are means of preserving 
health. So, too, experience proves that prudent and rational 
conduct, a regular vocation, a well-ordered family life, are 
conducive to life ; and that indolence, shiftlessness, dis- 
honesty, and malice have the tendency to make life miser- 
able and to destroy it. 

The rationalistic view denies to ethics its empirical char- 
acter. It claims that propositions of morals are neither cap- 
able nor in need of empirical proof. It regards them as the 
expressions of an innate faculty, conscience, or practical 
reason, which judges and legislates a priori. It asserts that 
everybody knows what is right or wrong without any expe- 
rience. Experience decides what is advantageous or disad- 
vantageous in its effects, but everybody knows before all 
experience what is good or bad, and no experience of what 
human beings really do or what may be the actual effects of 
their action can place in doubt or correct this immediate 
knowledge of what they ought to do. 

Our answer is : It is indeed true that mankind did not 
await the coming of moral philosophy in order to distinguish 
between good and bad. Morality is older than moral philos- 
ophy, and there could be no moral philosophy without morality 
as its presupposition. It arises as the reflection on an exist- 
ing positive morality, which governs life and judgment, and 
which is not destroyed or made superfluous by its appearance. 
It is also true that something like an inner voice speaks to 
the individual : You ought to do this, you must not do that ! 
and that too without any reasons, in the form of an uncon- 
ditional imperative. This inner voice we call conscience. 
We shall recur to the anthropological explanation and teleo- 
logical interpretation of these things later on. Here, how- 
ever, I should like to show that it does not follow from this 



8 INTRODUCTION 

that moral philosophy must be an a-prioristic or rational 
science. Let the science of dietetics again serve as an illus- 
tration to explain our meaning. 

What was said of the moral conduct of life may also be 
applied to bodily life. Just as men did not await the coming 
of moral philosophy before distinguishing between good and 
bad, they did not wait for the appearance of the science of 
dietetics in order to distinguish between the wholesome and 
the unwholesome. Long before medicine or any science 
existed, hungry men ate, the thirsty quenched their thirst, 
and the shivering covered themselves with skins. The ques- 
tion : Why do they do this, why is bread good for the hungry, 
and water for the thirsty ? would have seemed as strange to 
them as the question : Why is stealing wrong ? seems to our 
schoolboys. It is self-evident ; no other reason can be given 
for it. Here, as everywhere else, scientific investigation 
begins by regarding everything that has previously been 
accepted as self-evident, as a problem. After men had lived 
for untold ages according to the absolute imperatives of a 
naturalistic dietetics and an equally naturalistic therapeutics, 
which continue even to this day in the prescriptions or abso- 
lute imperatives of popular dietetics and medicine, what we 
call scientific medicine arose. Slowly and gradually, by 
means of observation and experiment, we have come to un- 
derstand the organization of the body and its relation to the 
external conditions of life, and have thus been gradually en- 
abled to prove the appropriateness of methods and cures 
which have long been practised, and to eliminate useless or 
harmful ones, and to employ new ones in their stead. 

Moral philosophy occupies a similar position. It, too, is 
confronted with a naturalistic, unscientific, traditional moral- 
ity. Just as bodily life was originally governed by instincts 
and blind habits, without physiology, so the entire human 
life, especially social life, was originally governed without 
science, by a kind of moral instincts, These moral instincts 



NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 9 

of peoples are called customs (Sitten). I employ this term 
to designate all those obligatory habits and forms of life, all 
those customs and laws, which uniformly govern the life of 
every member of a community. Like the dietetic rules, these 
customs appear in the consciousness of the individual in the 
form of absolute commands, which assign no reason for their 
validity. Thou shalt not kill, rob, or defraud a member of thy 
tribe,- — so conscience speaks, without grounds and conditions ; 
to do so is bad : that is a self-evident truth, just like the truth 
that fire burns, and bread satisfies hunger. 

Is this truth really incapable of proof, can moral philosophy 
do nothing but collect and arrange these absolute commands 
and prohibitions ? To say so is to deprive it of its character 
as a science, for science does not consist in taking inventories, 
but in the discovery and proof of truths. But such is not the 
case. The truths of popular morality themselves suggest a 
different answer ; they also appear in another form, namely 
in the form of proverbs : Pride goeth before a fall ; Lies 
are short-lived ; Honesty is the best policy ; A house divided 
against itself cannot stand. Here the imperative appears in 
the form of an assertion, one in which the reason is implied : 
Do not lie, for lies are short-lived ; Do not cheat, for ill-gotten 
gains do not prosper. And this suggests to us the real func- 
tion of a philosophy of morals. It must unfold in detail the 
reasons, which are simply implied in popular morality, for 
the different value of the different modes of conduct. Like 
the science of dietetics, it must show that certain modes of 
conduct which have been followed instinctively for a long time, 
are suited to the nature and conditions of human life, and are 
therefore beneficial, while others are injurious and pernicious. 
It will show, for example, that it lies in the very nature of 
falsehood to injure the deceiver, the person deceived, and the 
entire community which is united by the ties of language, by 
destroying confidence and thereby undermining the founda- 
tion of social life, without which real human life is not pos« 



10 INTRODUCTION 

sible. It will show that stealing disturbs the economic life 
of the injured party, and almost necessarily utterly destroys 
that of the thief, and, finally, that it endangers the life of the 
entire community by making property insecure, which is the 
inevitable effect of theft, and thereby undermines the founda- 
tions of civilization and all human life. In this way, moral 
philosophy changes instinctive custom into conscious purpos- 
iveness. 

But it may possibly do more than this. Just as medical 
dietetics does not merely explain, but rectifies the rules of 
natural dietetics, so moral philosophy does not merely justify 
the injunctions of natural morality, but also supplements and 
corrects them. Thus it may, for example, in giving the rea- 
sons for a rule, at the same time define the limits within 
which it holds. In explaining the perniciousness of false- 
hood, it at the same time helps us to decide when wilful 
deception may be allowable and necessary. It solves the 
problem of the so-called lie of necessity, which so strangely 
confuses common-sense (as well as many moralists). By 
showing why it is good to forgive injuries, it at the same 
time determines under what conditions alone forgiveness is 
possible, and under what conditions retaliation is necessary. 
Naturalistic morality with its absolute imperatives leaves 
us entirely in the lurch in complicated cases ; it leaves it to 
the individual's own instinct or to his tact, as it is usu- 
ally called, to settle the point. Moral philosophy cannot 
make tact superfluous ; particular decisions, based upon con- 
crete circumstances, must always be left to tact ; but it may 
lay down rules for the guidance of tact which will accomplish 
more than these absolute imperatives. 

Such is the method of ethics in the doctrine of virtues and 
duties. It explains its propositions teleologically and caus- 
ally : in order to reach such and such a goal, such and such 
behavior is necessary. But what about the knowledge of the 
goal itself? From what source does ethics derive the know!- 



NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 11 

edge of the perfect life ; how does it prove that its definition 
of the highest good is correct ? 

Here the case is somewhat different. We may say : The 
nature of the highest good is in reality not determined by the 
intellect, but by the will. The individual has an idea of 
the conduct of his individual life, a life-ideal, the realization of 
which he feels to be his true function as well as the highest 
goal of his desires. It is really not the intellect from which 
this ideal springs, although it appears in the form of an idea ; 
its excellence cannot be proved to the reason ; it is nothing 
but the reflection of the innermost essence and the will of the 
individual himself in ideation. If other individuals have 
different ideals, I cannot prove to them the inadequacy of 
their ideals either by logical demonstrations or by empirical 
causal investigations. I may, perhaps, make them feel the 
value of my ideal by the mere revelation and description of it ; 
indeed, I may convince them that mine has greater value than 
theirs, and thus win them over to mine. Nevertheless, it is 
not the understanding, but the will which impels them to de- 
cide in its favor. The intellect as such knows absolutely noth- 
ing of values, it distinguishes between the true and the false. 
the real and unreal, but not between the good and the bad. 

Earlier ethics frequently discussed the question whether rea- 
son or feeling was the source of moral knowledge. We shall 
say that both are involved. The question : What is a good 
life, will in the last analysis be decided by immediate, incontro- 
vertible feeling, in which the innermost essence of the being 
manifests itself. It is as impossible to force a man by logical 
proofs to love and admire an ideal of life as it is to make his 
tongue feel the sweetness or bitterness of a particular fruit. 
We can arouse such feelings only by showing that an object 
possesses the qualities which originally produced them in 
him, owing to his nature. And to a certain extent, a person's 
taste for the goods of life may be changed by habit, as his 
taste for certain foods may be changed. In that case^ 



12 INTRODUCTION 

however, the change depends on the internal modification 
of the nature of the being. But we may, when once the 
conception of the highest good is established, make clear to 
the intellect that such or such means are beneficial or 
injurious to its realization. 

It will not, therefore, be possible to give a scientific defini- 
tion of the highest good, which shall be valid for all, — one, 
that is, which we can force every individual by logical proofs to 
accept ; or, at least, it will be possible only in so far as the 
will itself is fundamentally the same in all individuals. And 
we may, considering the far-reaching similarity of the powers 
and the conditions of life, assume that this is, in a certain de- 
gree, actually the case. Just as all the members of an animal 
species, on the whole, desire to perform the same functions, 
so we shall find a certain similarity of ends or aims in the 
human species. It would be the business of a kind of natural- 
historical investigation to discover such a uniform goal. It 
would have to be shown, in the most general formulae, what 
men actually desire as the highest good, or the perfect life. 
The purpose of the moralist would here be identical with that 
of the biologist : he would be obliged not to prescribe the 
goal of life, but to discover it. Should he, however, succeed 
in discovering a universal end of life, he could not, of course, 
refuse to designate individuals absolutely deviating from the 
goal, or having differently -fashioned wills (if there should be 
such), as abnormal forms. As is well known, there are per- 
verse sexual impulses. Although it is impossible to prove 
to those who are so afflicted that their impulses are perverse 
— they say : Impulses are facts ; your impulse, tending as it 
does, is no more and no less a mere fact than ours — the 
physiologist is convinced that it is abnormal, and the person 
so afflicted can be clearly made to see that he is an exception, 
and that life would not be possible if the perversity were the 
rule. The same reasoning applies to an abnormal will. A 
man, for example, who is sensitive only to sensual impressions, 



NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 13 

say, to those of the palate, and has absolutely no appreciation of 
the other pleasures, the pleasures which spring from perception 
and knowledge, the exercise of powers, or is totally indifferent 
to the weal and woe of his human surroundings or uniformly 
enjoys their sufferings : such a being we should regard as an 
abnormal form, and we should not hesitate to call him per- 
verse, even though we could not convince him of the correct- 
ness of our condemnatory judgment. And it is quite possible 
that he would not even grant that his nature was abnormal, 
that is, a deviation from the average, nay, he might assert 
that could we but look beneath the outward appearances we 
should find that all others thought and felt as he did. 

5. Let me here add a remark concerning the relation of 
moral laws to natural laws. Natural laws are formulas which 
express the constant uniformity of natural occurrences. In 
the narrower sense of the term, the concept is interpreted to 
mean an absolute uniformity, one admitting of no exceptions. 
Thus, physics assumes that the law of gravitation is an exact 
mathematical expression of the uniform reciprocal action of 
all masses in the universe. In this sense, the law of causality 
itself is conceived as a strictly universal natural law. In a 
wider sense, however, we also designate as natural laws such 
uniform occurrences in nature as are not absolutely, but rela- 
tively constant. The laws of biology for the most part belong to 
this class ; for example, the laws which express the uniformity 
of structure and function of an animal or plant species. In 
this sense, we may evidently call the propositions of medical 
dietetics natural laws : As a rule such and such a method of 
procedure reacts upon the body in such and such a way ; Cold 
water ablutions harden the skin and the entire organism 
against changes in temperature ; The exercise of the mus- 
cular and nervous systems leads to an increase in strength 
and skill, while organs which are not used decay ; Opium and 
alcohol have such and such direct and such and such indi- 
rect effects upon the organism. All these are uniformities 



14 INTRODUCTION 

which cannot be determined with mathematical exactness, 
and which, owing to the complexity of vital processes, do 
not appear with the same constant regularity as those de- 
scribed by physics, but nevertheless they express universal 
and regular tendencies. 

In the same sense, we may call the propositions of ethics 
natural laws : they, too, express the constant connections 
existing between modes of conduct and their effects upon 
life. Falsehood has the tendency to produce distrust ; dis- 
trust has the tendency to disturb and destroy human social 
life : these are generalizations of the same kind as the asser- 
tion that alcohol tends to impair consciousness. The proposi- 
tion : Idleness weakens the powers of the understanding and 
the will, is nothing but a universal biological law, translated 
into psychological language. 

The objection is urged : The propositions of ethics or the 
moral laws declare what ought to be, and not what is, as do 
the natural laws. Thou shalt not lie, is a law of morality, 
one that is universally valid in spite of all the deviations of 
reality. The moral laws, it is held, are closely related to 
the laws on the statute books, not to the laws of nature. ■— 
They are certainly related to these ; nay, perhaps we may 
say that the statutes merely represent a section of the moral 
law. But that does not hinder them from being related to 
natural laws. The statutory laws undoubtedly express what 
ought to be, and there are exceptions to them in actual 
practice. Still these are but exceptions ; as a rule, the law 
is an expression of the actual behavior of the citizens ; we 
should surely not reckon among the laws of the state a law 
that is universally violated. It is a real law, not because it 
is printed on a piece of paper, but because it is an expression 
of the uniformity of action, even though this uniformity be 
not absolute. Moreover, although the law of the state has 
its origin in the will of man, it is, in the last analysis, based 
upon the nature of things, upon the causal connections exist- 



NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 1& 

ing between modes of conduct and their effects upon life. 
Thou shalt not commit forgery, shalt not steal, shalt not com- 
mit arson, or, as the law declares : Whoever forges, steals, 
or commits arson, shall receive such and such punishment : 
this law owes its origin to the fact that such acts have injur- 
ious effects upon society. Stealing has the tendency to 
undermine property rights, forgery has the tendency to 
undermine credit, and consequently to interfere with the pro- 
duction and distribution of commodities. This natural law 
is the ultimate ground of the statutory law ; the statutory law 
is a rule of conduct for the members of a community whose 
aim is the security of the conditions of social life. 

The same remarks apply to the moral law. A moral law 
declares not only what ought to be, but what is. The historian 
of civilization will undoubtedly declare : It is an expression of 
the relatively uniform behavior of the members of the group 
who acknowledge its validity, and it is, at all events, a principle 
according to which acts are universally judged. If falsehood 
were as common among a people as truth-telling, if falsehood 
were not judged differently from veracity, there would be no 
moral law on the subject. And should a moralist come to 
such a community and say : But it is an absolute law that you 
should not lie, he would be told : We don't understand you, 
and will not be bothered by your whims ! There is, of course, 
no such a people, not because falsehood ought not to be, but 
because it cannot be a universal mode of conduct. Falsehood 
can occur only as an exception : that is a law of nature, not a 
logical, but a psychological law. Lying presupposes faith in 
human speech, and such trust can exist only where truth- 
telling is the rule. And when this uniform relation between 
truth and confidence, falsehood and distrust, becomes fixed 
in conduct and finally also in consciousness, the moral law is 
formulated : Thou shalt not lie. The causal law forms the 
basis of the practical rule, in morals as well as in jurispru- 
dence and medicine. If there were no uniform connections 



16 INTRODUCTION 

between causes and effects, between acts and individual and 
social life, there would be no moral laws. The moral law is 
not the product of caprice, not the arbitrary command of a 
transcendent despot or of an uncontrollable " inner voice," 
but the expression of an immanent law of human life. Human 
life, that is, a life with a human mental-historical content, is 
possible only where all individuals act with relative uniformity, 
in accordance with the laws of morality, hence where the moral 
law has the validity of a biological law. Deviations from the 
moral law have the tendency to produce disturbances in indi- 
vidual and social life ; absolute violation of the moral law 
would lead, first, to the destruction of human historical life, 
and finally also to the destruction of its animal existence. 

Perhaps a comparison with the laws of grammar will eluci- 
date the formal character of the moral laws. It is popularly 
supposed that the laws of grammar declare what ought to be : 
grammar prescribes the way in which we ought to speak. 
The history of language regards grammar in a different light : 
grammar does not prescribe the ways in which we ought to 
speak, but describes the ways in which we do speak. The 
grammarian of Gothic or Middle High German collects and 
describes the forms which were actually used in the past ; the 
paleontologist collects and describes extinct forms of life; 
and the grammarian of the living language does the same. 
But a peculiar fact is observed here. There is a difference 
in the language of different persons, of different writers. 
True, we find great uniformity, at least in the general plan 
of the language, in the declensions and conjugations, but 
even here we find exceptions, especially in the spoken word. 
This compels the grammarian, whose real aim is to describe 
the language, to choose between different forms, in order to 
reach universal propositions. He will be guided in his choice, 
either by the frequency of their occurrence or by his estimate 
of the linguistic powers of the writers. Certain forms are 
declared to be the normal ones, and grammar, therefore, 



NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 17 

becomes a normative science after all : it decides what is 
correct and what is incorrect. This procedure, however, it 
must be confessed, is ultimately governed by teleological 
necessity : the purpose of the language is to communicate 
thoughts; deviations make this impossible, and they are 
therefore eliminated as disturbing elements. 

In the same way, popular thought regards it as the func- 
tion of moral philosophy to prescribe laws. But anthropology 
and history have a different conception of the problem. The 
primary aim is not to prescribe what men ought to do, and 
according to what principles they ought to judge, but to 
describe and understand the ways in which they really act 
and live. And to understand them means to understand the 
teleological necessity of their customs, laws, and institutions. 
Hence, here as before, a descriptive and explanatory science 
becomes a normative science : its propositions become prin- 
ciples of judgment and rules of conduct, in so far as they 
represent the conditions of human welfare. 1 

6. Let me now make a few more statements concerning 
the function of ethics to define the highest good. In sec- 
tion 3 we used the term perfection. A perfect human life, 
that is, a life in which all the bodily and mental powers of 
man are fully developed and exercised, is the highest good 
for the individual. We shall have to discuss the material 
phase of this definition in detail later on. Here I shall 
simply enter upon a brief consideration of its formal side. 
It has been said that this is a purely formal, empty definition, 
which may be filled with any concrete content whatsoever. 
As compared with this conception, the definiteness of other 
views, for instance, that pleasure is the absolute good, has 

1 Schleiermacher, whose entire ethics rests upon a parallelism between ethics 
and physics, the moral law and the natural law, discusses the difference between 
natural law and moral law in an academic treatise of the year 1825. (Complete 
Works, 3d Division, vol. II., p. 397.) Compare also F. J. Neumann, Natural Law 
and Economic Law (in tho Zeitschrift fir die gesamt. Staatsw., 1892, number 3) t 
and Eucken, Fundamental Concepts of the Present, 2d ed., 1893, pp. I73ff. 

a 



18 INTRODUCTION 

been extolled. When we speak of pleasure, it has been 
claimed, we know what we are talking about. I shall have 
to defer the discussion of hedonism to a later time. Here, 
however, I should like to show that it is utterly impossible to 
give anything but a formal explanation of the highest good. 
Medical dietetics does not give us a concrete exposition of 
the perfect bodily life, but only a general outline, which may 
be filled in in many different ways. Similarly, ethics can give 
only a schematic outline of a mode of life, the observance 
of which does not necessarily make a life valuable, although 
it is the presupposition of the healthy development of life. 
The value of such a life depends upon the number of con- 
crete elements which it contains, and no system of ethics, 
not even the hedonistic, can undertake to describe them. 

The following illustration will make our meaning clear. 
We cannot speak of one perfect life. A people or a race con- 
sisting of totally similar copies of a perfect original pattern 
would strike us as an infinitely poor and empty affair. Nay, 
the very thought of such a thing is horrible. Imagine a mul- 
titude of human beings wholly alike as to their inner nature 
and life, differing from each other only in the numbers at- 
tached to them. Perfection consists, not in the similarity, but 
in the variety of forms. In order to give a concrete representa- 
tion of the perfect life, we should have to take our ideal of 
humanity, and show what different forms of human life are 
possible or necessary to realize the idea ; that is, we should 
have to describe a multitude of nations, tribes, families, in- 
dividuals, and the modes of life necessarily resulting from 
their natural endowments. This would be the function of an 
artistic or creative philosophy of history ; manifestly an im- 
possible task. Indeed, it is not even possible to deduce the 
past life of humanity, which history reveals to us, with its 
multitudes of peoples and its historical development, from 
an idea of humanity ; much less to outline the future historv 
and its new forms. 



NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 19 

No one expects cesthetics to represent beauty in the con- 
crete, that is, to deduce all the real and possible beautiful 
pictures, statues, poems, and musical compositions from an 
idea of the beautiful. The production of concrete beauty 
is the business of the genius. ^Esthetics reflects upon the 
products of genius, it aims to express in general formulae 
the conditions upon which the products depend, or at least 
without which they cannot arise. It cannot, that is to say, 
propose concrete problems to the future artist, but it can 
assist him in gaining an insight into his art and avoiding 
mistakes. The same may be said of ethics ; it does not 
describe every possible form of good life — this the moral 
genius evolves out of the fulness of his nature — but under- 
takes to describe and to justify the rules of conduct without 
which a good and beautiful life cannot be realized. And 
ethics, too, may indulge in the hope that it can, in a measure, 
guide the student in discovering his peculiar life's task, and 
guard him against error in his attempts to solve it. 

7. It further follows from the above that there can be no 
universal morality in the concrete. The different expressions 
of the universal type of man demand each its own particular 
morality. The Englishman differs from the Chinaman and 
negro, and desires and ought to differ from them. Conse- 
quently, each one among them has a different morality. It is 
an undoubted fact that every nation has its own particular ideal 
of life and its own morality. The only question is whether 
" what is " " ought to be." It is absolutely essential, so it 
is claimed, that the propositions of morality be valid for all 
mankind or, in the words of Kant, " for all rational crea- 
tures." If we admit that there is a different code of morals 
for Englishmen and negroes, then shall we not have to con- 
clude that there is a different code for men and women, for 
artists and merchants, and, finally, also, one for each par- 
ticular man ? 

Indeed, the conclusion is a logical one. But I do not see 



20 INTRODUCTION 

how we can avoid it if once we grant and insist upon the 
assertion that differences in life are not only not an evil, but 
essential conditions of the perfection of mankind. If we jus- 
tify the different forms of human life, we shall also have to 
justify the different rules of conduct. Just as the dietetics 
of the Englishman naturally differs from that of the negro, 
his morality, which, according to our conception, is merely a 
universal dietetics, must differ from his. We shall, there- 
fore, be compelled to say that a mode of conduct which is 
suitable and essential to the former need not be so to the 
latter. And we find not only that the Englishman actually 
treats the negro differently from one of his own countrymen, 
but that his relations to the negro are governed by an en- 
tirely different code of morality ; all of which does not mean, 
of course, that I am willing to justify the atrocities which 
have been and are still being committed every day against 
the savages in the name of civilization, by Europeans — alas, 
now also by the Germans. 

Only in a limited sense can we speak of a universal moral- 
ity. In so far, namely, as there are certain fundamental sim- 
ilarities in the nature and life-conditions of all human beings, 
in so far will there be certain universally valid fundamental 
conditions of healthy life. Thus medical dietetics may present 
certain fundamental rules as universal truths : A certain 
amount of food, consisting, say, of such and such substances, 
albumen, fats, carbo-hydrates, water, etc., furthermore, a cer- 
tain amount of work and rest is necessary to the preservation 
of bodily life. In the same sense, morality can advance uni- 
versal propositions : The preservation of human life demands 
that some attention be given to the care of offspring and the 
rearing of the young ; and in order that this end may be reached 
the sexes must live together in some permanent form. Or : 
A tribe cannot exist without some regulations tending to 
hinder hostilities among its members ; the infraction of such 
rules tends to breed ruin ; hence, murder, adultery, theft, 



NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 21 

and perjury are bad ; justice, benevolence, and veracity, the 
inner dispositions of the will which prevent such acts, are 
good. 

But in order that such universal rules may be directly 
applied, life must be adapted to the particular nature and 
the particular conditions surrounding it. The dietetic rule 
of nourishment mentioned above does not mean the same 
for the Esquimau as for the negro. Similarly, the rules of 
a universal human morality must be adapted to the special 
historical forms and conditions of life before they can be 
directly employed in determining and judging conduct. The 
commandment : Treat your neighbor justly and kindly, 
observe the rules of family and social life, does not mean 
the same for an African negro as for a European Christian. 
That monogamy is the best form of family life for a civil- 
ized nation does not prove that it is the best form for the 
entirely different conditions governing the negro tribe. We 
may say with perfect justice that monogamy is the higher 
form of family life. But that simply means that it is suitable 
to the higher stages of development and not that it is wrong 
for the lower stages to have a different form. Perhaps polyg- 
amy is a necessary stage in the development of the family, 
just as blood-revenge is a necessary stage in the development 
of law, and slavery in the development of society. 

This implies also that different times have different moral 
codes. That it is so is an indisputable fact, but it is hard to 
convince common-sense that it must be so, that it is not 
necessarily a sign of imperfection and perversion for an 
earlier age to have other customs, different acts and judg- 
ments, than the present. We are inclined to think that what- 
ever differs from our customs is all wrong. We blame the 
Middle Ages for burning heretics and witches, torturing sus- 
pects and killing criminals by the thousands. We are right 
in calling their methods brutal and barbarous. This, how- 
ever, does not prove that a brutal age did wrong in employ- 



22 INTRODUCTION 

ing them. Perhaps it did ; perhaps, at least, these methods 
were frequently abused, but perhaps, on the other hand — 
proof, of course, is impossible from the very nature of the 
case — this method of procedure was suitable and necessary 
in that age. Perhaps the disciplining of human souls by 
the church was so necessary a precondition of civilization, 
that the Middle Ages stand justified before the tribunal of 
history, for suppressing, with all the means at their command, 
every attempt of the individual to emancipate himself from 
this discipline (which was the usual object of heresy). Per- 
haps the entire administration of justice of those days, with 
its brutal methods, was at least a temporarily necessary pre- 
condition of the complicated social life of the mediaeval 
towns. It is consoling that our courts and police are more 
efficient, and attain the same or better results by means of 
more humane methods, but this does not prove that the Mid- 
dle Ages could have preserved the peace in the same way. 
The Middle Ages might make the following answer to our 
charges : You owe it to us that you are now able to get along 
with such mild punishments ; it has taken us centuries of 
hard work to eradicate the elements which absolutely refused 
to adapt themselves to social order. To be sure, this was no 
agreeable task; but now that it is accomplished, it is not 
fair of you to censure us for having undertaken it. Besides, 
who knows how long your methods will prove successful ? 

And now we shall have to go still further and say : Even 
different groups of the same nation, and, finally, also, 
different individuals are subject to a special moral code. 
Different dispositions and life-conditions demand not only 
a different bodily, but also a different spiritual and moral 
diet. What is beneficial and necessary to one may be un- 
suitable and injurious to another. We are never in doubt 
about this fact when it comes to actual practice. We disap- 
prove and censure one man for something that we consider 
permissible or lovable in another. Indeed, we may say that 



NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 23 

it is not possible for different individuals to act exactly in 
the same way. If it is true that the entire nature of the 
agent manifests itself in every act — and we may say that it 
is characteristic of real human action to express not merely 
a particular phase of man's nature, but the whole will, the 
entire man — then every impulse and every act, every word 
and every judgment, bears the stamp of this particular indi- 
vidual. Conduct is only outwardly alike ; on the inner and 
the essential side the individuality asserts itself, and that 
is not a defect, but a mark of perfection. Only where true 
morality begins to disappear, where it approaches the domain 
of law, does the demand still hold that a man act, outwardly 
at least, according to rule. As Schiller's epigram puts it: 

Gern erlassen wir dir die moralische Delikatesse, 
Wenn du die zehen Gebote notdiirftig erfiillst. 

We must remember, however, that there is a reason why the 
moral preacher should emphasize the universality of the moral 
laws rather than the individuality of morality. Nature and 
inclination will take care that the individual receives his 
rights; whereas submission to a general rule is not to his 
taste. Indeed, the individual is very apt to demand that an 
exception be made in his case, on the ground of his special 
nature and circumstances, his temperament and his social 
position, and to excuse his conduct before others and before 
his own conscience, without, however, being justified from the 
standpoint of higher morality. Kant's rigorism is entirely in 
place against the inclinations of the natural man. The main 
thing is that the sensuous will be subordinated to universal 
law. This is the beginning, the foundation, of all finer, more 
individualized morality. The latter is, in the words of the 
Gospel, not the " destruction " of the law, but the " fulfilment "• 
(jrXrjptoais) of the law. Nor, as has already been said, can 
morality tell the individual in what the fulfilment consists. 
All it can do is to lay down general rules, leaving it to the 



24 INTRODUCTION 

conscience and to the wisdom of the individual to adapt these 
to special conditions. When, however, he needs guidance in 
these matters, he will seek the help of a personal counsellor, a 
spiritual adviser, who is, perhaps, as necessary as is a medical 
adviser for the body. For, surely, the relations of moral life 
are no less complicated, its problems no less difficult, its needs 
no less serious, its disturbances no less menacing, than those 
of bodily life. Here as well as in the latter case we have a 
confusing mixture of inclination and aversion, fear and hope. 
All this seemed self-evident to an earlier age ; nothing 
seemed more necessary than to place the individual under the 
official care of a wise and experienced moral and spiritual 
adviser, leaving it to custom and individual instinct to care 
for the body. Is the present increase of physicians and the 
corresponding relative decrease of spiritual advisers a sign 
that we are more solicitous of the body than of the soul ? Or 
are we in hopes of influencing the soul by means of the body ? 
Or is it because the task of caring for the soul is becoming 
more difficult in consequence of the growing differentiation of 
thought and feeling, and because our faith in its accomplish- 
ment is waning ? 

The fact remains, on the other hand, that the rules of 
moral philosophy are not absolutely valid for all. We may, 
as was said, conceive of a universal human morality, or even 
of a morality for all rational creatures, but no one is able to 
realize it. The moral philosopher is a child of his people in 
thought and feelings, and is influenced by their morality; 
positively, for he has been moulded by their judgments and 
ideals from the days of his childhood ; negatively, for his no- 
tions of what ought not to be and his ideas of what ought to be 
are conditioned by his times. The abstract rationalism of the 
eighteenth century did not appreciate this truth, which Kant, 
too, failed to observe. The historical century, as the nine- 
teenth century might be called in contradistinction from the 
eighteenth, the sosculum philosophicum, no longer finds it 



NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 25 

possible to believe in the "universal man." Every moral 
philosophy is, therefore, valid only for the sphere of civiliza- 
tion from which it springs, whether it is conscious of the fact 
or not. It can have no other aim than to draw the general 
outlines of a mode of life which must be followed by the 
members of the particular sphere, in order to make possible 
a healthy, virtuous, and happy existence. 

8. In conclusion, let me say a word concerning the practi- 
cal value of ethics. Can ethics be a practical science, not only 
in the sense that it deals with practice, but that it influences 
practice ? This was its original purpose. It is the function 
of ethics, says Aristotle, to act, not only to theorize. Scho- 
penhauer begins his ethics (in the fourth book of his main 
work) with the attempt to disprove this view. All philosophy, 
he says, is theoretical ; upon mature reflection, it ought 
finally to abandon the old demand that it become practical, 
guide action, and transform character, for here it is not dead 
concepts that decide, but the innermost essence of the human 
being, the demon that guides him. It is as impossible to teach 
virtue as it is to teach genius. It would be as foolish to ex- 
pect our moral systems to produce virtuous characters and 
saints as to expect the science of aesthetics to bring forth 
poets, sculptors, and musicians. 

I do not believe that ethics need be so faint-hearted. Its 
first object, it is true, is to understand human strivings and 
modes of conduct, conditions and institutions, as well as their 
effects upon individual and social life. But if knowledge is 
capable of influencing conduct — which Schopenhauer him- 
self would not deny — it is hard to understand why the 
knowledge of ethics alone should be fruitless in this respect. 
If a physician can by pointing out the causal relation existing 
between cleanliness and health, between the excessive use 
of alcohol or nicotine and the derangement of the nervous 
system, induce a mother to use water more freely, or a young 
man to be moderate, why should not a moralist have a right 



26 INTRODUCTION 

to hope that the discovery of similar causal connections exist- 
ing between conduct and the form of life will influence con- 
duct ? If he can make clear that dissipation, indolence, anger, 
envy, falsehood, inconsiderateness, produce certain disturb- 
ances in life, while prudence, politeness, modesty, upright- 
ness, amiability, tend to produce good effects on the life of the 
individual and that of his surroundings, why should not such 
knowledge also influence the will ? Or shall we assume that 
everybody is perfectly well aware that the former modes of 
conduct are good and the latter bad, and that we need not 
wait for ethics to tell us these things ? And does experience 
really show that knowledge is unable to turn the will in the 
direction of the good ; is Schopenhauer right in saying, velle 
non discitur f — If so, I believe it is not the right kind of 
knowledge. A real insight, which, of course, does not consist 
merely in memorizing and rattling off a lot of formulas and 
maxims, is bound to be as fruitful here as everywhere else. 
To be sure, we cannot expect such an insight to determine the 
will absolutely. Natural capacities, education, habit, example, 
praise and censure, the admiration and contempt of our sur- 
roundings, and other things, play their part. But knowledge, 
too, is a factor and a very important factor with the wise — 
by whom we do not necessarily mean the learned. But as 
for Schopenhauer's dogma that the will is something abso- 
lutely fixed in every life, I am inclined to regard it as one of 
the articles of superstition of which there is no dearth in 
Schopenhauer's teaching. There is no such rigid, constant 
will, not even in the narrower sense in which Schopenhauer 
uses the term : that the relation between egoism and altru- 
ism is unalterably determined at birth in the case of every 
individual. 

Moral instruction, however, can have no practical effect 
unless there be some agreement concerning the nature of the 
final goal — not a mere verbal agreement, to be sure, but one 
based upon actual feeling. It would be futile for a physician 



NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 27 

to advise a man who does not care for health and bodily 
welfare to do certain things and to abstain from others. 
Similarly, it would be useless for a moral philosopher to 
recommend moderation and prudence to one whose notion 
of a " good life " is a few years of excitement and dissipa- 
tion, and then a bullet through the brain. Or perhaps it would 
not be all in vain. Who knows but what he might finally 
succeed in convincing such a person that he was mistaken 
about himself and his will, and his conception of the 
highest good ; who knows but what more careful reflection 
might show him that such a life cannot be good and the final 
goal of his own will ? We can hardly deny that conversions 
have actually taken place. Shall we say that moral preach- 
ing alone can produce these results, and that moral philosophy 
cannot ? Well, I do not know whether it is possible to draw 
a sharp line of separation between them. The preacher can 
scarcely hope to influence any one without appealing to his 
insight. And why should not the impartial presentation of 
the relations existing between conduct and welfare prove to 
be an effective sermon, even though — or rather let us say, 
just because — it does not assume the form of moralizing 
exhortation ? 

But should any one still hold the view that moral philoso- 
phy is not only fruitless, but dangerous and harmful, on the 
ground that the forces regulating life, custom and conscience, 
are weakened by speculations concerning their origin, import, 
and validity, we should reply : In the first place, such reflec- 
tions are not produced by philosophy, but, conversely, philoso- 
phy is produced by these inevitable reflections. Reflection on 
human conduct and judgment is inevitable. Whenever there 
is any controversy concerning a concrete case, concerning the 
Tightness or wrongness of an act, a judgment, or an institu- 
tion, we are compelled to go back to principles which will 
decide the case. Moral philosophy is nothing but a radical 
attempt to discover ultimate principles by which to determine 



28 INTRODUCTION 

the value of things, in so far as these depend upon the human 
will. Secondly, it is especially necessary that our age reach 
some conclusion concerning these principles. The present is 
characterized by a strong desire to reject a priori all the old 
accepted truths. There are many symptoms of this desire : 
think of the avidity with which Friederich Nietzsche's ora- 
cular utterances concerning the necessary transformation of 
all values {Die Umwertung alter Werte) are received by the 
young, as well as of the violent condemnation by the social 
democracy of all existing political and social institutions. A 
passionate mania for the new and unheard-of, in thought, in 
morals, and in modes of life, has taken hold of our times. It 
is utterly useless to appeal to authority and tradition ; this 
mania is nothing but an outbreak of free individual thought, 
which has been repressed so long, and made distrustful by 
coercion ; it is the reaction against the school, which forced 
men not to think, but to memorize, against the church, which 
asked them not to think, but to believe. These are the symp- 
toms of the Aufklarung, the Aufklarung which was long since 
reported dead ; it has come back to life and has taken hold 
of the masses, of the young men especially, of course ; they 
want to do their own thinking and mould their lives, and not 
to be governed blindly by the traditional thoughts and ac- 
tions of others. And to this they have a perfect right ; it is 
the fundamental right and highest duty of man to think his 
own thoughts and to act his own acts : independent self- 
determination is the royal prerogative of the mind. Nothing 
will avail here but free, unbiassed thought. It will be the 
business of ethics to invite the doubter and the inquirer to 
assist in the common effort to discover fixed principles which 
shall help the judgment to understand the aims and problems 
of life. It will not tell him : This shalt thou do, but will inves- 
tigate with him the question : What art thou striving after, 
what are thy true ideals, not merely thy temporary moods 
and whims ? Perhaps he will then find that .much of what 



NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 29 

he was about to cast aside, as a mere command of caprice, 
is rooted in the very nature of things, and consequently also 
in his own will. 1 

1 [On the Problem and Methods of Ethics, the Relation of Ethics to other 
Sciences, and other introductory matter, see Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 
chap. I.-IL, pp. 1-24; Stephen, The Science of Ethics, chap. I., pp. 1-40; Schur- 
man, The Ethical Import of Darwinism, chap. I., pp. 1-37 ; Muirhead, Elements 
of Ethics, chaps. I.-IIL, pp. 1-39 ; Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, chaps. I.-IL, pp. 
1-31, Appendix B, pp. 324-328; Hyslop, The Elements of Ethics, chap. L, pp. 
1-17 ; Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, chaps. I.-IIL, pp. 1-35 ; Ho ff ding, 
Ethik, I.-IV., pp. 1-54; Wundt, EthiJc, Introduction, pp. 1-17 (English transla- 
tion, pp. 1-20) ; Dorner, Das menschliche Handeln, Introduction, pp. 1-23 ; Sim- 
mel, Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft, vol. I., Preface ; Miinsterberg, Ursprung 
der Sittlichkeit, Introduction, pp. 1-10; Runze, Ethik, vol. I., pp. 1-16, which con- 
tains many excellent bibliographical references ; Marion, Legons de morale, chap. I 



BOOK I 

OUTLINES OF A HISTORY OF THE CONCEPTIONS 
OF LIFE AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY 



Jta quadam non verborum sed rerum eloquentia contrariorium 
oppositione seculi pulchritudo comporiitur. 

Augustinus. 



CHAPTER I 

THE CONCEPTION OF LIFE AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY AMONG 

THE GREEKS 

I shall precede my exposition of ethics with an historical 
survey of the development of the conception of life (Lebens- 
anschauung) and moral philosophy. I shall confine my 
attention to the historical phenomena which are still directly 
influencing the life of the Western nations. No one will 
reach a clear and distinct knowledge of the mixed and 
often confused conceptions and aspirations of our age who 
does not pursue the great tributaries which form the stream 
of our moral civilization to their sources. 

The previous history of our moralitv and theory of life 
divides itself into three great periods. The first embraces the 
development of the ancient world to its conversion ; the sec- 
ond, the Christian development with its two halves, the Chris- 
tianity of the old world and mediaeval Christianity ; the third, 
the development of modern times, which has not yet come to 
an end. 

The ancient world's view of life is naive-naturalistic : the 
perfection of human nature in civilization is the absolute 
goal. The Christian conception is supranaturalistic ; turning 
away from civilization, it demands the death of the natural 
man and his impulses, in order that a new, spiritual man 
may arise. The modern theory of life is not so consistent: 
and self-contained ; it is influenced by both of these opposing 
tendencies. The naturalistic tendency predominates ; the dawn 
of the modern period is marked by the revival of the ancient 

$ 



34 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

pagan conception of life (the so-called Renaissance). Still, 
the modern view of life contains many essential elements of 
the Christian conception of life ; and the supranaturalistic 
tendency forms an undercurrent in it, or runs parallel with it. 

Three groups of moral-philosophical systems, differing in 
form and contents, correspond to the different conceptions of 
life. 

Greek ethics proceeds from the fact of striving and acting. 
It asks : What is the final goal, and how can it be reached ? 
The goal is the highest good ; and hence the problem is : to 
determine the nature of the highest good, and to indicate the 
way to its attainment. Inasmuch as the highest good consist* 
in a form of human life, or presupposes it as the means of its 
realization, Greek ethics essentially assumes the form of a 
doctrine of virtues : it describes the perfect man in his differ- 
ent phases. 

Christian ethics makes the fact of moral judgment its starting- 
point. Human strivings and acts are objects of judgment; 
the predicates good and bad are applied to them. And they 
are thus judged not only by man, but, according to the Chris- 
tian conception, above all by God, the highest law-giver and 
judge. Christian ethics, therefore, inquires : What, according 
to God's commandment, is duty, and what is sin ? It is a doc- 
trine of duty and as such does not instruct us how to pro- 
mote individual and social welfare, but sets up a moral 
law, the application of which necessitates interpretation and 
casuistry. 

What was said of the modern conception of life is true of 
modern ethics : it is influenced by the two preceding stages 
of development, and does not therefore exhibit a thorough- 
going uniformity. It is as a whole — a few theological sys- 
tems apart — more closely connected with Greek ethics. 
Still, the Christian influence is every where recognizable . We 
notice it in the form of the science : modern ethics is largely 
a doctrine of duties. We notice it also in the matter ; thus, 



THE GREEK CONCEPTION 35 

for example, duties towards others usually occupy the most 
important place among the duties, while in Greek ethics em- 
phasis is laid upon the virtues and duties which tend to the 
perfection of individual life. And when the highest good is 
discussed, the good of the individual is not first thought of, 
as was the case in Greek ethics, but the good of the commun- 
ity. The idea of the kingdom of God, which Christianity has 
made the keystone of its theory of the universe and life, even 
permeates the thoughts of those who know nothing of it or do 
not want to have anything to do with it. Even the men of 
1789 cannot deny their relation to Christianity. They destroy 
the church, but the notion of a kingdom of God on earth — 
altered though it be — influences them also ; for where else 
do these ideas of the freedom, equality, and fraternity of all 
men and all nations come from ? 

1. The moral philosophical reflections of the Greeks * start 
from the question : What is the ultimate end of all striving 
(to riXos), or what is the highest good ? It necessarily 

1 There is no dearth of elaborate treatments of the subject. Besides Zeller's 
History of Greek Philosophy, we may mention : the thorough work of K. Kostlin, 
Die Ethik des klassischen Altertums, Part I., 1887 (to Plato) ; Lathardt, Die 
antike Ethik, 1887 ; Th. Ziegler, Die Ethik der Griechen und Rdmer, 1881. An 
excellent work on the ethical conceptions of the Greek people is L. Schmidt's 
Die Ethik der alten Griechen, 2 vols., 1882. A good survey of the history of 
ethics in general is given by H. Sidgwick, Outline of a History of Ethics , 1886; 
a detailed account of the most important movements, by P. Janet, Histoire de la 
philosophie morale et politique, 2 vols., 1885. [See also Wundt, Ethik, Part II., The 
Development of the Moral Conceptions of the Universe, pp. 270^*33 ; English 
translation, vol. II. ; J. Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, Part I., The Moral 
Ideal, pp. 77-249 ; Watson, Hedonistic Theories from Aristippus to Spencer ; 
Hyslop, Elements of Ethics, chap. II., The Origin and Development of Ethical 
Problems, pp. 18-89 ; Calderwood, Handbook of Moral Philosophy, pp. 318-369 ; 
Eucken, Die Lebensanschauungen der grossen Denker. The first two chapters of 
Jodl's Geschichte der Ethik in der neuern Philosophie, vol. I., pp. 1-85, give a sur- 
vey of the history of ethics down to the beginning of modern times. Martineau's 
Types of Ethical Theory, 2 vols., discusses some of the most important systems. 
See also the histories of Greek and General Philosophy which are mentioned in 
Thilly's translation of Weber's History of Philosophy , pp. 8-16. Eor bibliographies 
on particular thinkers, see the standard histories of philosophy, especially Uber« 
weg, Erdmann, Windelband, Weber, all of which have been translated. — Tr.] 



36 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

suggests itself to the agent when he reflects upon his con- 
duct. Aristotle, the founder of ethics as a systematic science, 
gives us the following lucid exposition of the subject, at the 
beginning of his Nicomachean Mhics. 1 Every art, and every 
scientific inquiry, and similarly every action and purpose, aims 
at some good. As there are various actions, arts, and 
sciences, it follows that the ends and goods are also various. 
Thus health is the end of medicine, a vessel of shipbuilding, 
victory of strategy, and wealth of domestic economy. But 
certain arts are subordinated to other arts ; the art of making 
bridles works for horsemanship, the latter for strategy, and 
so others for others. But inasmuch as the end of the lead- 
ing art embraces the ends of the subordinate arts, and since 
the latter are desired for the sake of the former, there must, 
if our desires are not to be idle and futile, be an ultimate 
goal or good which is not in turn a means, but is desired for 
its own sake, all other things being desired for the sake of 
it. What is this highest of all practical goods (tl to 7rdvTcov 
aKporarov twv irpaKTwv ayaOcov) ? 

As to its name, he continues, there is a general agreement. 
The masses and the cultured classes agree in calling it hap- 
piness ; it is happiness (evhaifiovla) or welfare (to ev £w ^ 
ev irpcLTTetv). But in what does happiness consist? Here 
the views begin to diverge. The masses define it as pleas- 
ure, or wealth, or honor, or something similar; different 
people give different definitions of it, and often the same 
person gives different definitions of it at different times ; for 
when a person has been ill, health, when he is poor, wealth 
is the highest good. Cultivated people, however, the phil- 
osophers (ol xapievTes) y define it as virtue and also as 
philosophy. 

We are perhaps justified in saying that Aristotle exag- 
gerates the differences of opinion with respect to the highest 
good ; in the last analysis the Greek people and their moral 

1 See Welldon's translation of Aristotle's Ethics. 



THE GREEK CONCEPTION 37 

philosophers had essentially the same conception of the 
nature of happiness. 

We are in the habit of translating the word evhau^ovia by 
the term happiness ( G-luckseligkeit). We thereby make it a 
matter of feeling. The Greek word does not connote a 
subjective state of feeling, but rather an objective form of 
life : evBaL/jLQ)v (with which dyaOoSal/jbcov, /caKoSaLficov, are con- 
trasted) is the man who is blessed with a good halficov and 
therefore with a good lot in life, for Salfxcov signifies the god- 
head who apportions to men their fates. Now, what is the 
Greek conception of a happy lot or fate ? 

I cannot describe it more briefly and more forcibly than by 
calling to mind the well known anecdote of the meeting of 
Solon and Croesus which is narrated by Herodotus. 1 It admir- 
ably contrasts the Hellenic conception of what is a good life 
with that of the barbarians. After showing Solon through 
his treasury, the king addresses him as follows : " stranger 
from Athens, we have heard much of your wisdom and 
travels, we have been told that you have visited many coun- 
tries, in the pursuit of philosophy, for the sake of study (Oecopirjs 
ev€/ca). Now, I should like to know whether you have ever seen 
a man whom you regarded as the happiest of all (oXfiLdoTaTos)" 
But he asked him, expecting that Solon would call him, the 
king, the happiest of all men. Solon, however, did not wish 
to flatter him, but spoke the truth : " King, the Athenian 
Tellos." The king was surprised, and asked : " Why do 
you esteem Tellos happier than all others?" Solon an- 
swered : " Tellos lived at a time when the city was prosper- 
ing ; he had beautiful and good children, and, above all, lived 
to see his grandchildren, and all of them were preserved to 
him ; he was, for our conditions, in good circumstances, and 
finally, he suffered a glorious death ; at Eleusis, in a battle 
between the Athenians and their neighbors, he succeeded in 
repelling the enemy after a gallant fight, and met a most 

1 I., 30. 



38 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

beautiful death. And the Athenians buried him where he fell, 
at public expense, and greatly honored him." But when 
the king received an equally unsatisfactory answer to the 
question whom Solon would regard as the happiest man 
after Tellos — Solon, as we know, mentions two unknown 
Argive youths, who died suddenly, after having done their 
mother an honorable service — Croesus could no longer re- 
strain himself : " And is our happiness (evhaufiovla) absolutely 
nothing in your eyes, that you place it after that of those pri- 
vate persons ? " Solon gave an evasive answer : " Envious are 
the gods and impatient, and many things are experienced in 
the long time which we do not desire ; and many sufferings. 
A human life may last seventy years, which makes, not 
counting the intercalary months, 25,200 days, but if we count 
these, 26,250 days. Of all these days no two are alike, there- 
fore I cannot call you happy until I know that your end has 
been a happy one." 

I call it an evasive answer ; the well known pragmatic 
use which Herodotus makes of the anecdote necessitates such 
a reply. 

The true answer to the question of the king would have 
been as follows : King, what we Hellenes and what you 
here, whom we call barbarians, call happiness is not the 
same. You regard as a happy lot to have much and to 
enjoy much, while for us it means to live nobly, to act nobly, 
and to die nobly. When a man has our good wishes, we say 
to him : Act nobly (ev irpdrreiv) ; while you would have to 
say : May good things happen to you (ev •waayeiv). Hence 
I have called Tellos a happy man. -He did not enjoy the 
luxury of a royal household, but he possessed what a citizen 
in a Hellenic town needs. He was a capable man, and 
governed his affairs wisely ; he had beautiful and good 
children, his city honored him, and his name was not un- 
known to its enemies. That is our idea of a happy man. 

This is what the story of Croesus and Solon, which cir- 



THE GREEK CONCEPTION 39 

culated among the Hellenes, seems to me to signify ; it 
expresses the popular Greek conception of the difference 
between the Hellenic and barbarian view of life. According 
to the latter, the value of life consists in the possession of 
wealth and enjoyment; according to the former, virtuous 
activity or active virtue alone makes life worth living. For- 
tune may crown it with a beautiful death. — The same idea of 
the difference between the Hellenic and barbaric conception 
of life is brought out in the legendary epitaph, transmitted 
in various forms, which the Greeks dedicated to the legendary 
King Sardanapalus : Let us eat and drink, for te-morrow we 
shall die. 

2. Greek moral philosophy consists essentially in the 
analysis and conceptual formulation of the popular Greek 
ideal of a perfect life. I shall attempt to show this by em- 
phasizing the chief phases of its history. 

The real scientific treatment of moral philosophy dates 
from Socrates. 1 Greek philosophy began with speculations 
upon the external world, upon the form, origin, and primal 
elements of the universe. Socrates refuses to consider these 
things, he makes the affairs of human life the objects of his 
reflections ; these he regards as more important and more 
capable of investigation. The change represented by Socratic 
thought connects itself with the general changes in the life of 
the Greek people. Greek life, which was centred at Athens 
in the fifth century, tended away from the old simplicity and 
constraint towards- a fuller and freer development. All the 
arts of civilization flourished on the soil of the new metropol- 
itan life. Rational arts, based upon theories, gradually took 
the place of the traditional handicraft ; geometry and astron- 
omy, music and architecture, gymnastics and medicine, strategy 
and rhetoric, became objects of scientific reflection and sys- 

1 [For Socrates, see : Xenophon's Memorabilia, translation in Bonn's Library ; 
Plato's Protagoras, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Symposium, etc. ; Aristotle's Metaphys- 
ics, I., 6. See also for Socrates and the following systems the references 
mentioned, p. 3o. — Tu.] 



40 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

tematic treatment. Excellence or efficiency (aperrj) in these 
arts now became a matter not merely of natural skill and 
practice, but of theoretical knowledge : whoever desires to ac- 
quire the former must possess the latter. — Is not this true of 
all excellence, is it not true also of the excellence of the citi- 
zen and statesman, nay, of the excellence of man in general ? 
According to the traditional view, civic and human excel- 
lence is innate: whoever comes into the world as a good 
man and as the descendant of good men, and is reared among 
the good, possesses it as a gift of the gods (evhai^cav). The 
enlightened ones of the new period gradually convinced them- 
selves that all excellence, moral and political no less than 
technical, is the result of instruction and education: virtue 
can be taught, that is the new conception which the Sophists 
first advanced in systematic form. " If you associate with 
me," Protagoras promises the young man in the Platonic 
dialogue bearing his name, " on the very day you will return 
home a better man than you came." And upon being asked 
by Socrates in what he would become better, he adds : " If 
he comes to me, he will learn that which he comes to learn. 
And this is prudence in affairs private as well as public ; he 
will learn to order his own house in the best manner, and 
he will be able to speak and act for the best in the affairs 
of the state." 

By many of his contemporaries Socrates was looked upon 
as one of the Sophists. Not altogether unjustly ; he differed 
from the latter : he did not regard himself as a possessor of 
wisdom, and did not acquire money through public lectures ; 
but in his views he had much in common with them. Above 
all, he believed with them that excellence or virtue depends 
upon insight and may be taught. This proposition is em- 
phasized in all the accounts, in Xenophon, Plato, and Aris- 
totle, as characteristic of his point of view : Socrates, so Aris- 
totle declares, considered the virtues to be forms of reason. 1 
i Nic. Eth., VI., 13. 



THE GREEK CONCEPTION 41 

The game is true of human excellence as such : without 
knowledge no virtue ; and conversely : right conduct neces- 
sarily depends upon the proper insight, no one knowingly 
and willingly does wrong (ouSa? i/coop apbaprdvei). If a man 
knows the right goal and the right path, he will necessarily 
follow it ; his going astray and also his moral trangression are 
always the result of error, as the Greek word dfMaprdvecv 
indicates. This is especially true of civic virtue ; hence 
Socrates condemns the Athenian state. The democratic 
constitution rested upon the tacit assumption that political 
excellence was the inheritance, so to speak, of every citizen. 
Socrates is constantly attacking this view in arguments like 
the following : Do you not, when you wish to steer a ship, 
look around for a man who has learned and understands 
the art of navigation ? And when a man is sick you send 
for some one who understands the art of medicine ? But 
when it comes to governing the city or the state, you choose 
any one for whom the lot may decide. 

Hence knowledge, scientific knowledge of that which is 
really good, and of the means of acquiring it, is the great 
condition of all excellence and virtue. That is the view 
upon which Socrates bases himself and which places him at 
the head of the Greek moral philosophers. It is the funda- 
mental conception common to his successors. The sage 
alone, the man who has scientific knowledge — in this Plato 
and Aristotle, the Stoics and Epicureans, agree — is virtuous 
and happy in the full sense of the term. The wise man 
alone is capable of governing the state ; if we are to have a 
perfect state, kings must either become wise men, or wise 
men kings, to quote the well-known saying. 

3. Socrates saw the necessity of a science of right con- 
duct and right government, but he did not solve the 
problem which he proposed ; he left it to his pupils to create 
the sciences of ethics and politics. Plato 1 first undertook 

1 [See the Dialogues of Plato, Jowett's translation, especially, Theaetetus, 
Phaedo, Philebus, Gorgias, Republic. — Tb.1 



42 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

the task. Its accomplishment seemed all the more urgent, 
the weaker the old foundations of morality were becoming. 
With the entrance of the Greek people upon the period of 
enlightenment, the old civic respectability and morality 
rapidly declined. The younger Sophists — as Plato portrays 
them in the persons of Callicles and Thrasymachus (in the 
G-orgias and the Republic) — formulated the facts into a 
theory: there is no objective difference between good and 
bad, it does not inhere in the nature of the things, but is a 
mere matter of convention and caprice. The sanction of cus- 
tom and law rests upon fear and superstition, which restrain 
the stronger from making use of their natural superiority ; or 
they are another means, in the hands of the mighty themselves, 
to strengthen their power. The enlightened one knows it and 
acts accordingly ; he obeys law and custom when they are 
conducive to his interests, he breaks them when they thwart 
his plans, and when he can do so with impunity. 1 

Plato undertakes to overcome this enlightenment, not 
from without, but from within, by a deeper philosophy. 
This is, indeed, the only remedy: half-enlightenment, pseudo- 
enlightenment, can be destroyed only by complete enlighten- 
ment. To fetter thought, to oppose it with authorities, 
is utterly useless, nay, simply makes matters worse. Plato 
therefore explicitly places himself upon the standpoint of 
reason, which the Sophists, too, claim to occupy. With 
Socrates he recognizes the necessity of basing human and 
civic virtue upon knowledge. Virtue without knowledge, 
virtue resting solely upon education, habit, authority, correct 
opinion, is a blind groping ; it may accidentally find the 
right path, but there is no certainty of its doing so. Only 
the scientific knowledge of the good can make man's willing 
correct, certain, and steady. 

1 Laas has given us a good description of this sceptical-nihilistic sophistical 
philosophy, which had a great deal to do with producing and influencing the 
Platonic ethics, as its antithesis, in the introduction to the second volume of his 
Idealismus und Positivismus. 



THE GREEK CONCEPTION 43 

But is there such a thing as objective goodness and right ? 
This was denied by Callicles and his companions : that is 
good which happens to please, and that is right which we 
have the power of enforcing. The aim of Plato's entire 
philosophy, is to prove, in opposition to this, the proposition : 
The good and right is something absolutely independent 
of opinions, something determined by the nature of the things 
themselves. What is the good and right as such ? 

The Platonic philosophy gives an answer to this question 
that far transcends the horizon of the healthy common-sense 
which we find in Socrates. The good is nothing but the 
world, or reality itself. But, Plato immediately adds : reality 
as it is in itself that is, in idea. That which common-sense 
regards as the real reality, the sum total of these sensuous, 
particular things, is not the good ; the world of sense is full 
of imperfections. But it is not the true reality, it has no 
being in the real sense of the term ; its being is mixed with 
non-being; it is in a state of constant growth and decay. 
The true reality, on the other hand, of which being can 
really be predicated, is an absolutely existing, absolutely 
unitary, ideal, spiritual, being, and this is nothing but the 
good itself, or God. — God is both the absolutely good and 
the absolutely real, says scholastic philosophy, following in 
the footsteps of Plato. 

Now the question arises, What is good and right for a 
particular being? This will naturally depend upon his re- 
lation to the All-Good and All-Real ; or, stated in different 
language, the value of a particular element of reality can 
be determined only by its significance within the whole of 
reality. The world is not, like a bad poem, full of super- 
fluous episodes, but the unitary realization of an idea, the 
idea of the good, which unfolds itself in a variety of qualities 
or ideas, and so forms a cosmos of ideas, an intelligent 
organism in which every element of reality, like every scene 
in a good drama, occupies the position of a necessary 



44 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

member. So, too, the idea of man must be denned by his 
place in the cosmos, if we are to reach a knowledge of what 
man is in reality, or in idea. If the philosopher, the dia- 
lectician, who has the gift of seeing things in their logical 
relations, succeeds in reaching this definition, he may say 
that he has objectively denned the essence of goodness and 
right. 

Thus Plato brings ethics into the most intimate con- 
nection with metaphysics ; he makes it a part of the one 
unitary science of the real, or the good. 

What now is found to be the idea of man in the idea of 
the universal reality ? In the Timceus, of which parts of the 
Phcedrus form the prelude, Plato has made the most elabo- 
rate attempt to explain man's place in the cosmos. The 
human soul is derived from the world-soul ; it is, like the 
latter, a mixture of two elements ; on the one hand, it 
participates in the real reality, in the world of ideas, the 
world of existent thoughts, or the life of God ; on the other, 
in the world of origin and decay, in the corporeal world. 
With the reason (z^oO?), it belongs to the world of ideas, with 
the animal impulses {hnQvy^iai) arising from its union with 
the body, it belongs to the corporeal world. These two dis- 
similar parts or phases of the soul are connected by an 
intermediate form : Plato calls it 6vfju6<; or to OvfioetSis ; it 
embraces the higher, nobler impulses, the affections of the 
heart, moral indignation, courage, the aspiring love of honor, 
moral awe ; perhaps the Platonic term may be best trans- 
lated by our word will. The organization of the inner man 
is made visible in the organization of the outer man; the 
head is the seat of reason, the citadel of the ruler; in the 
breast dwells the heart, the seat of the affections, as common- 
sense looks at it ; it is, so to speak, the watch-house in which 
courage and anger dwell, ready to break forth at the beck 
of the ruler ; under the diaphragm, at last, are situated the 
organs of animal desire, the organs of nutrition and repro- 



THE GREEK CONCEPTION 45 

duction. — The function of man is to represent a cosmos on 
the small scale after the pattern of the larger cosmos : as the 
macrocosm is fashioned into beauty and order by the ideal 
element, so the microcosm must be fashioned into proportion 
and harmony, order and beauty, by reason, the ideal element 
peculiar to it. 

The anthropological-ethical application of this metaphysical 
principle of the science of the good is made in the dialogue 
on the State. It begins with a discussion of the notion 
of the " just man." How shall we define a just man, a man 
who realizes the idea, the natural or divine vocation of man ? 
He is one in whom the three elements, defined above, harmo- 
niously co-operate to perform their special functions. We 
thus arrive at the scheme of the so-called cardinal virtues : 
wisdom (<7O0/,a), courage (avSpeia), and self-control or healthy- 
mindedness (acocfrpocrvvr)), which three combined give us justice 
(Slkcuoctvvti). A man is wise, in whom reason realizes its 
purpose, the knowledge of the true reality, and as the ruling 
principle regulates his entire life ; he is courageous when 
the will does its work, assisting the reason in governing 
and bridling the irrational element; he is healthy-minded 
when the animal impulses peacefully perform their functions, 
without disquieting and disturbing the spirit. Such a well- 
regulated soul deserves to be called a just soul ; it typifies 
human nature, or the idea of man. In it the exercise of 
reason forms the real, essential content of life ; reason as 
such consists in knowledge ; perfect knowledge, however, is 
philosophy, that is, the dialectical re-creation of the absolute 
ideal reality in concepts. The other elements and their func- 
tions are subordinate to it. And hence we may say : Philo- 
sophy is the true function, the highest content and purpose, 
of human life. 

This would answer the question concerning objective good- 
ness : such a life is good in itself, good for man, not accord- 
ing to accidental opinion and convention, but in the nature 



46 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

of things, in which philosophy forms the central purpose to 
which all the other functions and actions are subordinated as 
means. 

That such a " just " life is at the same time a happy and 
desirable life hardly seems to need proof. Just as the sound- 
ness of the body is subjectively experienced as good health, 
disease as poor health, so " justice," which is nothing but the 
health of the soul, or the state expressing its true nature, 
necessarily procures the greatest satisfaction. And so the 
opposite of justice (aSucla) will necessarily be the greatest 
subjective evil for a man, not because of some accidental 
effects, like punishment and disgrace, but on account of 
the ugliness which characterizes an " unjust " life (wahn- 
schaffen, misshapen, we might call it, employing a term 
peculiar to the Northern languages). With incomparable 
skill Plato portrays the life of such a " misshapen " soul and 
its inner discord in his picture of the tyrant, who satisfies all 
his desires and enjoys the privilege — which those illumi- 
nators envy him — of perpetrating all kinds of wrongs and 
violent deeds with impunity. 

Let me also briefly mention that the same fundamental 
traits reappear in the constitution of the just state, man on 
the large scale. A state is just in which the wise rule, the 
strong and courageous (a military nobility) disinterestedly 
and submissively serve the government, and finally, the 
producing classes peacefully and modestly perform their 
tasks. 

We see, Plato does not differ very radically in his views 
from the popular Greek conception of justice and happiness. 
It is true, he emphasizes the element of knowledge in his 
scheme, and the kind of knowledge which he has in mind, 
the speculative knowledge of the real reality, is, of course, 
something wholly foreign to the popular idea. 

We must not, however, lose sight of another fact. Our 
exposition of Plato's ethics has not sufficiently emphasized a 



THE GREEK CONCEPTION 47 

phase of his conception of life which stands out quite promi- 
nently in many dialogues, alienation from the world ( Welt- 
fliichtigkeit) , a doctrine which differs so remarkably from the 
old Greek mode of thought, and approximates the Christian 
view. Plato does not always adhere to the conception, out- 
lined above, of the nature of man as a spiritual-sensuous 
being, but often manifests a strong tendency completely to 
spiritualize the nature of man : reason constitutes his real 
essence ; the animal nature, sensuality and desire, is an acci- 
dental appendage, which drags down the spirit, and of which 
the wise man strives to divest himself. God is pure thought, 
free from desire ; to be like him is the highest goal of human 
striving. The notions of pre-existence, transmigration of 
souls, and immortality are connected with this idea; this 
mundane life is conceived as a prison-house from which the 
spirit seeks to escape. 

It is evidently, first of all, his opposition to the doctrine of 
pleasure which provokes these thoughts. Callicles and his 
followers make the satisfaction of the desires the highest 
good, while Plato sees in pleasure something, " a trace of 
which," as we read in the Phosdrus, " a demon has added to 
all bad things." Hence he looks upon life as a struggle of 
reason with lust, a struggle in which the nobler impulses of 
the heart are on the side of reason. This teaching supplies 
the moral preacher with a wonderful weapon, which Plato 
himself handles with great force and skill, and we ought to 
make a more extended use of his writings ; they would appeal 
more powerfully to our young men than the weak-kneed 
Cicero ; the Republic is the very thing for young people whose 
thoughts are preoccupied with and confused by Nietzsche's 
Ubermensch. But perhaps it is also possible to connect this 
mode of thought with Plato's personal experiences. His 
relations with his contemporaries were not friendly. His 
native city gave the philosopher no opportunity for public 
activity, as he understood the term. That he did not always 



48 ORIGINS OF MOKAL PHILOSOPHY 

bear his isolation with equanimity may be inferred from his 
harsh criticism of the persons who took a prominent part in 
public life, the statesmen, Sophists, and rhetoricians. He re 
garded them as the representatives of the most unworthy art, 
the art, namely, of catering to the whims of the great animal, 
called Demos, and thus acquiring advantages and fame ; 
whoever interferes with their schemes, and refuses to become 
a party to their crimes is doomed. And so the untimely 
philosopher, " like one who, in the storm of dust and sleet 
which the driving wind hurries along, retires under the 
shelter of a wall," withdrew from public life and sought 
refuge in the solitude of the Academy ; his life was enriched 
and blessed by the contemplation of the true reality, and he 
looked forward to his deliverance in peace and good-will, with 
bright hopes. 1 

Thus Plato, like every honest philosopher, utilized his own 
personal experiences as the key with which to interpret 
human life, nay, all things in general. Yet he was too much 
of a Greek to reject this natural-sensuous world altogether. 
He was a pessimist in his judgment of men, but he remained 
an optimist in his judgment of man. In the passage of the 
Republic quoted above, he adds that the solitary philosopher 
will not do the greatest work unless he find a state suitable 
to him ; for in a state which is suitable to him he will have 
a larger growth, and be the savior of his country as well as 
of himself. 

4. Aristotle, 2 in Dante's words " the master of those who 
know," " the eternal prince of all true thinkers " as Comte 
calls him in the Catechisme positiviste, was the first to stake 
off practical philosophy as a separate field of knowledge and 
to discuss it, as a systematic whole, in its three parts, ethics, 
politics, and economics. His works lack the wonderful charm 

1 Republic, 496 D. 

2 [Nicomachean Ethics, transl. by Welldon. For other translations and 
bibliography, see my translation of Weber, History of Philosophy, p. 104 s 
aote4. — Tk.] 



THE GREEK CONCEPTION 49 

of the Platonic expositions, but we are compensated for this 
loss by a wealth of great thoughts. I shall give an outline 
of his ethics ; in the main it follows the lines marked out by 
the Platonic system. 

He begins with the question concerning the highest good, 
which all agree to designate as happiness (ev&ao/jLovla), and 
finds, by means of one of those Socratic inductions which are 
so common in his writings, that it must consist in the exercise 
of the specific excellence of the human soul : for, as with a 
flute-player, a statuary, or any artisan, or in fact anybody 
who has a definite function and action (epyov ti /ecu irpa^'), 
his goodness or excellence (rdyaObv koX to ev) seems to lie 
in his function, so it would seem to be with man, if indeed 
he has a definite function. What, then, is this function or 
action of man ? Aristotle compares man with organic beings 
and finds that he shares with all beings the vegetative func- 
tions, and with all animals sensation and desire, but that he 
alone possesses reason (to \6yov e^oz/). The peculiar func- 
tion of man, then, is an activity of soul in accordance with 
reason, or not independently of reason (yjrvxv^ ivepyeia /caTa 
Xoyov r) /*?; dvev \6yov). This being so, the good of man is an 
activity of soul in accordance with virtue, or, if there are 
more virtues than one, in accordance with the best and most 
complete virtue. 1 

Now, that the life which is objectively the best also pro- 
cures the greatest subjective satisfaction necessarily follows 
from Aristotle's great psychological generalization : all un- 
impeded, successful exercise of the powers natural to a being 
is accompanied with feelings of satisfaction. The limbs take 
pleasure in the movements, the eye in sight, the flute-player 
in the music, the orator in the speech, and so every being in 
the exercise of its specific function : hence the most pleasura- 
ble thing for man is the exercise of reason. 

At the conclusion of the work he again takes up the sub- 

1 Nic. Ethics, Book I., chap. 6. Welldon's translation. 



50 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

ject: 1 Since reason, whether it be divine itself or the most 
divine part of our being, is the highest function of man, per- 
fect happiness will consist in the exercise of that which is 
peculiar to it, that is, theoretical activity. And this is a con- 
clusion which would seem to agree with our previous argu- 
ments as well as with the truth itself. For of all activities 
contemplation is the most continuous and the most inde- 
pendent of the necessaries of life ; the exercise of the other 
faculties is dependent upon opportunity, but the wise man is 
always and under all circumstances capable of speculation 
himself. It alone is self-sufficient, it alone has its end in 
itself ; all practical activities, even those of the statesman 
and general, which are regarded as the highest and most 
beautiful, have external ends ; contemplation alone is not ex- 
ercised for the sake of an external end. It is also admitted 
that there is no virtuous activity so pleasant as philosophic 
reflection ; at all events it appears that philosophy possesses 
pleasures of wonderful purity and certainty. " Hence such 
a life may seem too good for a man. He will enjoy such a 
life not in virtue of his humanity, but in virtue of some 
divine element in him. If then the reason is divine in com- 
parison with the rest of man's nature, the life which accords 
with reason will be divine in comparison with human life in 
general. Nor is it right to follow the advice of people who 
say that the thoughts of men should not be too high for 
humanity, or the thoughts of humanity too high for mortality ; 
? or a man, as far as in him lies, should seek immortality 
{aOavari^eiv) and do all in his power to live in accordance 
with the highest part of his nature." 

Who does not feel in these words the emotion with which 
the usually so placid thinker expresses his deepest life- 
experiences ? 

To be sure, the purely theoretical life is unattainable by 
man ; God's life alone consists in pure thought. In man 

1 B. X., chap. 7. 



THE GREEK CONCEPTION 51 

reason is inseparably connected with the functions which lie 
possesses in common with the animals and plants, with sen- 
sation and desire, with nutrition and reproduction. From 
this it follows that human life is confronted with a number 
of problems, which may be characterized in general as the 
organization of the lower functions by reason and in harmony 
with the ends of reason. Thus arise the so-called ethical 
virtues or excellences, which are distinguished from the in- 
tellectual or theoretical virtues. 

There will therefore be as many ethical virtues as there 
are separate spheres of problems arising from the sensuous 
side of human nature. Among them we may mention: our 
attitude to the animal desires, our behavior with respect to 
economic commodities, honor, anger, fear, social and economic 
intercourse with men, etc. There is a virtue for every sphere. 
Virtuous conduct in reference to the satisfaction of animal 
desires is so-called healthy-mindedness (o-oxfipoo-vvr]) ; in ref- 
erence to wealth, liberality {eXevOeptorr]^) ; in reference to 
honor, high-mindedness and love of honor {fieyaXo^v^ia and 
<f>L\oTifiLa) ; in reference to danger, courage (avBpeta), etc. 

Virtue, as language, too, suggests, is always a mean be- 
tween two extremes, between excess and deficiency. Courage, 
for example, is the normal state in regard to the fearful, 
being a mean between the state of the coward (SeiXo?), who 
stupidly runs away from danger, and the state of the fool- 
hardy man (Opacrv<i), who blindly rushes into it. Temper- 
ance is the normal habit or state in regard to sensuous 
pain, being a mean between the state of the licentious man 
(a/coXao-Tos) , who is incapable of resisting sensuous feelings, 
and the state which we might call unfeelingness (avaco-drjala), 
which, however, hardly exists, wherefore language has no 
real name for the opposite of licentiousness ; and the same 
is true of the rest. 

The normal state is the result of practice, as Aristotle ex- 
pressly declares, taking issue with Socrates, who identified 



52 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

the ethical virtues with insight or prudence. Prudence 
(<t>p6vr]cri,^ undoubtedly also plays a part in the ethical vir- 
tues, for it shows which is the normal state for every one in 
every case. And so we obtain the definition of ethical virtue 
which Aristotle places at the head of his discussion of the 
virtues : Virtue is a state of deliberate moral purpose con- 
sisting in a mean that is relative to ourselves, the mean 
being determined by reason, or as a prudent man would 
determine it. 1 

It is evident that this definition does not yet furnish us 
with an objective standard. For what is the mean or normal, 
or what is the standpoint from which reason or the prudent 
man determines it ? Aristotle did not answer this question, 
because, so it seems, he did not believe an answer could be 
found. He repeatedly accentuates the difference between 
this field of knowledge and the theoretical sciences, which 
treat of things " which cannot be otherwise," while the prac- 
tical sciences deal with things " which can be otherwise." 
In the sixth book, where he discusses the question of prudence 
(^poV^o-t?), as opposed to theoretical knowledge (a-o</>/a), he 
even seems to incline to the view that the former never gives 
us universal judgments, but only particular decisions ; which 
would be equivalent to denying the possibility of a scientific 
ethics. And indeed we must admit that Aristotle's doctrine 
of the ethical virtues fails to meet the demands, which must 
be made upon a scientific treatment of the subject ; he 
makes no attempt whatever to explain the difference in 
value between virtuous conduct and vicious conduct, as was 
done later, say by Spinoza, who entertained the same general 
view. He confines himself to a description of virtuous modes 
of conduct, which draws mainly upon Greek popular usage, 
and does not care for systematic completeness. Of real value 
is the acute exposition of the meaning of the words which 
the Greek people used to express moral distinctions. 

1 1106 b. 36, B. II, chap. 6. 



THE GREEK CONCEPTION 53 

In this way Plato and Aristotle meet the Socratic demand 
for a science of the good. They take into account the place 
of man in the cosmos, and then attempt to define his idea, 
that is, his natural and divine purpose, and to show how he 
may realize this purpose. The conception of the perfect man 
which they advance, essentially resembles the popular Greek 
ideal. There is only one marked difference : in the scheme 
of the philosophers the purely theoretical exercise of the 
intellect constitutes the chief element of human perfection ; 
the philosophical ideal not only embodies the general features 
of the Greek character, but also embraces the personal feat- 
ures of the philosophers, which gives the concept greater 
precision. 

5. The post-Aristotelian moral philosophy can hardly be 
said to have created any new conceptions ; on the whole it 
follows in the traces of its great predecessors. But it is 
lacking neither in great and fruitful thoughts nor in strong 
and forcible moral preaching. I must confine my efforts to 
a mere outline of the standpoints of the two chief schools, 
which for a long time formed the chief subject of interest in 
philosophy, the Stoics and Epicureans. 

The Stoics, 1 like Plato and Aristotle, regard the realiza- 
tion of his natural purpose as the highest good and highest 
happiness of man. They formulate this idea into a principle : 
life according to nature (o/jLoXoyov/juevcos rfj (frvaec £fjv). On 
the basis of the unusually comprehensive and valuable extracts 
from the ethical writings of the Stoics, which we find in Dio- 
genes Laertius, 2 we may outline their ethical philosophy 
about as follows. The underlying thought is the proposition : 
The fundamental impulse of every living being aims at self- 
preservation (rr)v TTpcornv opfjLTjv to %coov ta")(eiv iirl to Tnpelv 
kavTo), to which is added the polemical statement : and not 

1 [See Diogenes Laertius, Book VII.; Stobaeus, Eclogues, II.; Cicero, Definibua* 
Bibliography in Weber-Thilly, p. 140, p. 146. — Tk.] 

2 VII., 84-131. 



54 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

at pleasure. The law of its nature is, therefore, to avoid the 
harmful and to strive for what is appropriate to it (ra oUela'). 
Pleasure, however, arises as an accompaniment when a being 
obtains what is appropriate to it {iTriykvvnpa, which calls to 
mind Aristotle's liny iy vonevov reXos). Even plants act in 
this way, although they are unconscious of the impulse, which 
is also the case with our own vegetative functions. Ani- 
mals, however, are conscious of the impulse, and hence it is 
the law of their nature to follow their conscious impulses 
(for them to Kara (fiver lv is equal to to koltcl ttjv opfirjv 
^ioiKelcrOai). But man is endowed with reason (6 \6yos), 
besides impulse ; hence to live according to nature means for 
him to live according to reason (icaTa \6yov), for reason is by 
nature the regulator of desire (\6yos T(-yy'iTn<$ eiriyiveTai t% 
0/3//%). It would be contrary to nature for man to follow 
irrational desire. — But in so far as the nature of each 
individual being is determined by the nature of the All, to live 
according to reason means for man : to obey the universal 
law, or, which is the same thing, Jupiter, the highest regula- 
tor and ruler. — And this is eudamionia and welfare (jevpoia 
tov /3tW), namely to do everything in harmony with our 
demon, according to the will of the universal governor and 
manager of all things. And the natural disposition of every 
being is its virtue or perfection (TeXetWt?) ; and this we 
ought to seek for its own sake, without being influenced by 
the fear or hope of any external effects : for it is in it that 
happiness consists. — If now we call a man who lives accord- 
ing to reason a wise man, we may say : The wise man, and 
the wise man alone, is virtuous and happy. 

These thoughts may all be regarded as applications and, in 
part, more definite expressions of Aristotelian principles. 
Reference is often made to the rigorism of the Stoic ethics, 
which holds that virtue alone is a good, but this is, in the 
last analysis, exactly what Plato and Aristotle teach : that 
happiness does not consist in pleasure, but in the exercise of 



THE GREEK CONCEPTION 55 

virtue. Nor is there any radical difference in their concep- 
tions of the value of the so-called external goods, wealth, 
health, beauty, fame, etc. The Stoics will not concede that 
these things are real goods : in themselves they are neither 
useful nor harmful, good or bad, but either one or the other, 
according to the use to which they are put, while that only 
is good which can never be harmful, but only useful. Yet 
they confess that they are not absolutely indifferent, that wealth 
is preferable to poverty, health to sickness {jrpor^^va — 
aTroTTporjy/jLeva). These, too, are at bottom merely systemat- 
ized, technical statements of Aristotelian ideas. Aristotle 
had used an admirable figure in defining the value of external 
goods : they are for life what the xoprjyta i s f° r the tragedy, 
hence they certainly belong to the perfect happiness of life, 
just as the ^oprjyla is necessary to the perfect production 
of the tragedy, without, however, forming a real part of 
happiness. 

It seems, however, that the desire gradually grew stronger 
in the Stoics to make happiness (ev&ai,/uLovla) absolutely inde- 
pendent of external goods. The freedom from passions 
(iraOri) which are aroused in the soul by the acquisition and 
loss, the possession and want, of external goods, the doctrine 
that virtue suffices for happiness, old and legitimate concep- 
tions of Greek ethics, are emphasized more and more as 
moral philosophy becomes moral preaching. The practical 
moralist's most thankful and fruitful task is to throw man 
upon his own inner resources, and this task the Stoic philos- 
ophy accomplished with laudable skill : nowhere shall we find 
more forcible exhortations to make ourselves independent of 
the things which are not in our power, and to depend 
upon ourselves with inner freedom, than in Epictetus's little 
Manual} 

With this tendency to moral preaching is connected an- 
other element in the Stoic philosophy : the value of theoreti- 

> See Long's translation. 



56 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

cal activity is lessened, while the exercise of the ethical 
virtues, the field of action, especially action dealing with 
human relations, the family and the state, gradually becomes 
more prominent. But the demand that we keep ourselves 
free remains the chief and the highest demand. 

6. Epicurus, 1 too, and his disciples are in search of the 
highest good and find it in eudaemonia ; but their defini- 
tion of it differs from that of the philosophers mentioned 
above, nay, even from the popular Greek conception: for 
them eudgemonia is a feeling of pleasure. This view leads 
to a change in the position of virtue or excellence : virtue 
becomes a means to the end of pleasure. 2 

The difference between the two standpoints is perfectly 
apparent. The Stoics agree with Aristotle and Plato in defin- 
ing happiness as an objective condition of the soul : a life 
that realizes the natural purpose of man, or perfectly realizes 
his idea, is itself the highest good. To be sure, the subjective 
satisfaction follows the objective constitution, as the shadow 
follows the body, but the satisfaction is not itself the good. 
The Epicureans, on the other hand, regard the feelings of 
pleasure which life procures as the good itself, and the con- 
stitution or character of which they are the effect, as the 
means. 

When we disregard this question of principle and examine 
the counsels which Epicurus gives to his pupils concerning 
their mode of life (for example in his letter to Menoikeus) 3 
the difference largely disappears, yes, we might almost be 
tempted to view it as a purely scholastic or technical differ- 
ence. Epicurus by no means advises us to choose every 
pleasure, nay, he expressly warns us against it. " When, 

1 [Diogenes Laertius, X. ; Cicero, De Jinibus ; Lucretius, De rerum natura 
(translated by Munro). Bibliography in Weber-Thilly, p. 194, note 1.] 

2 Kostlin shows us in his excellent exposition of the Democritean ethics, 
Geschichte der Ethik, I., 196, how, even in his ethics, Epicurus was forestalled 
by the forceful thinker whom he followed in his physics, Democritus. 

8 Diogenes Laertius, translation by Yonge in Bonn's library, X., 122-125. 



THE GREEK CONCEPTION 57 

therefore, we say that pleasure is a chief good, we are not 
speaking of the pleasures of the debauched man, or those who 
lie in sensual enjoyment, as some think who are ignorant, and 
who do not entertain our opinions, or else interpret them per- 
versely ; but we mean the freedom of the body from pain, and 
of the soul from confusion." By happiness, he says, he 
means the health of the body and the freedom from disquiet- 
ude of the soul (rrjv rov o-cd/jlcltos vyueiav teal rrjv t>}? ^u^t}? 
arapa^iav reXos elvai rov fia/capicos tr\v). Hence the essence 
of wisdom is, in his opinion, to avoid the causes of confusion. 
Such are the loss and want of things which we are in the 
habit of possessing and enjoying, as well as the fear of 
losses. " To accustom oneself, therefore, to simple and inex- 
pensive habits is a great ingredient in the perfecting of 
health, and makes a man free from hesitation with respect to 
the necessary uses of life. And when we, on certain occa- 
sions, fall in with more sumptuous fare, it makes us in a 
better disposition towards it, and renders us fearless with 
respect to fortune. Hence we regard contentment (avrdpfceia) 
as a great good. Above all, we must rid ourselves of vain 
desires" Epicurus distinguishes between natural or neces- 
sary and vain or empty desires (i-iridvpiai <j>vo-ifcai — icevai). 
The former, he finds, are easily satisfied, — nature does not 
make great demands, — while the latter, the desires of luxury 
and vanity, are infinite and never to be satisfied. Philoso- 
phy frees us from this trouble by teaching us what we should 
avoid and what we should strive after. 

Another source of trouble is the fear of death, and of what 
comes after death. From this, too, philosophy frees us by 
showing that death is nothing terrible, since, when we exist, 
death is not present to us, and when death is present, then 
we have no existence. And there is nothing terrible in living 
to a man who rightly comprehends that there is nothing ter- 
rible in ceasing to live. An enthusiastic disciple of Epicurus, 
Lucretius, emphasizes this phase ; every book of his work on 



58 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

the Nature of Things 1 sings new praises to the man who 
freed mankind from the imaginary terrors with which super- 
stition had peopled heaven and earth. 

" Hence it is not continued drinkings and revels, or the 
enjoyment of female society, or feasts of fish and other such 
things as a costly table supplies, that make life pleasant, 
but sober contemplation which examines into the reasons for 
all choice and avoidance, and which puts to flight the vain 
opinions from which the greater part of the confusion arises 
which troubles the soul. Now the beginning and the greatest 
good of all these things is prudence ((fipovwo-ts), on which ac- 
count prudence is something more valuable than even phil- 
osophy, inasmuch as all the other virtues spring from it, 
teaching us that it is not possible to live pleasantly unless 
one also lives prudently, and honorably, and justly ; and that 
one cannot live prudently, and honestly, and justly without 
living pleasantly, for the virtues are connate with living 
agreeably, and living agreeably is inseparable from the 
virtues." And so Epicurus, too, reaches the popular Greek 
conception that virtue and happiness are inseparable, as the 
line in the poem expresses it : 

'Qs dyados re kol cvbaifxcav dfia ylverai dvfjp. 

7. Summarizing the main features of Greek ethics, we may 
say : It agrees with the popular Greek view that the highest 
good consists in the perfection of man as a natural being. 
Special stress is laid upon the development of the intellectual 
side. Even the popular conception recognizes the great im- 
portance of the intellect for human perfection, a fact to which 
the above mentioned work of L. Schmidt on the popular 
morality of the Greeks repeatedly calls attention. 2 The 
philosophers, the specific types of the Greek people, as the 
prophets are of the Israelites, go still further, and make 
reason the root and crown of all human excellence. For them 
wisdom or philosophy is both the means and the content oj 

* De rerum natura. 2 L, 156, 230ff. 



THE GREEK CONCEPTION 59 

eudcemonia — the former, in so far as it acquaints us with 
the highest good and regulates practical life to the end of 
realizing it, the latter, in so far as philosophy, or the scien- 
tific contemplation of the universe, is the highest, freest func- 
tion of human nature, one that is desired solely for its own 
sake. It is said that Anaxagoras, being once asked for what 
end he had been born, answered : " For the contemplation 
of the sun, and moon, and heaven, and the order governing 
the entire universe." This is really the answer which the 
entire Greek philosophy, and the Greek mind in general, 
gives to the question. 

At first sight, the conception strikes us as a rather strange 
one. We are not in the habit of attaching so much impor- 
tance to the intellectual function ; we neither expect that 
prudence or insight will always result in right action, nor 
are we ready to believe that the true mission of man consists 
in the contemplation of things, or in philosophy. Perhaps 
we shall understand both points better when we remember 
how different was the position occupied by scientific knowl- 
edge among the Greeks from that which it holds in modern 
life. In our world not only the so-called learned professions, 
but even scientific research itself, which has been organized 
by the state in universities and academies, have become 
branches of industry. As is the case with the manufacture 
of shoes and watches, a man may, at present, make his liv- 
ing, and a good living at that, under favorable conditions, by 
turning out mathematical and philological, scientific and 
philosophical investigations. This was not the case in Greece, 
at least not when philosophy first arose. The philosophers 
emphatically declare that scientific contemplation and pro- 
fessionalism are absolutely incompatible : the Sophist who 
attempts to combine them, thereby loses philosophy ; he is, as 
Plato shows with bitter sarcasm in his Sophist, a dealer in 
sham wisdom. Heraclitus and Parmenides, Plato and Aris- 
totle, did not engage in the contemplation of reality for the 



60 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

sake of acquiring money or professorships, but solely for its 
own sake : we work, says Aristotle, in order to have leisure, 
but the most beautiful way of filling our leisure is philosophy. 
— This difference in the outward position of scientific research 
is intimately connected with its altered inner constitution ; 
modern scientific research, is, as compared with Greek phil- 
osophy, more like labor, often like petty and arduous labor. 
The physical or historical investigator of our time employs 
an enormous apparatus of learning and technical skill, col- 
lections and instruments, in order to throw light upon some 
obscure nook of reality which is of little interest in itself, and 
does not even interest the investigator very much. The 
result of his work may at some time, in some connection or 
other, assist us somewhat in understanding reality ; often we 
cannot see the connection, and it is absolutely immaterial to 
many an investigator whether his work will contribute any- 
thing to our knowledge of the whole or not. 

The Greek philosophers, on the other hand, were happy in 
the belief that it was possible, and that each one of them 
would be able to unravel the ultimate mysteries of the uni- 
verse by pure contemplation. Even Aristotle, the great 
observer, declares that of all activities, scientific investigation 
is in least need of external aids; so convinced is he that the 
apparatus of research is a purely secondary affair. It is plain 
that a theoretical function which aims to solve all the great 
problems of the universe and of life with its world-encompass- 
ing thoughts, has greater significance for the personal life 
of a man than the investigation of Plautinic metres and the 
discovery of new methyls and phenyls. When the occupation 
with such things becomes a sport and is pursued as a sport, 
it may, like all sports, chess-playing or stamp-collecting, 
become a matter of immediate interest; but a man will 
hardly be inclined to regard such work, even though he fol- 
lows it permanently, as the real object of his existence. If, 
however, we could hope to unravel the mysteries of the world 



THE GREEK CONCEPTION 61 

and of life by studying philosophy, who would not be inter- 
ested in it, who would regard it as too trivial? "Let no 
one," so Epicurus begins the letter quoted above, " delay to 
study philosophy while he is young, and when he is old let 
him not become weary of the study ; for no man can ever 
find the time unsuitable or too late to study the health of his 
soul. And he who asserts either that it is not yet time to 
philosophize, or that the hour is passed, is like a man who 
should say that the time is not yet come to be happy, or that 
it is too late." 

The belief in the irresistible power of knowledge, which is 
expressed in the Socratic statement that knowledge deter- 
mines conduct, for it is inconceivable that any one should do 
what he himself regards as wrong (a statement which reap- 
pears in some form or other in all the philosophers), has 
manifestly a great deal to do with the position which philos- 
ophy occupied in the intellectual life of the Greeks. We are 
perfectly aware that a man may know what to do and still 
not do it. From our earliest childhood we have been told and 
have known that we ought not to requite evil with evil but with 
good, even in the case of our enemies — but who acts accord- 
ingly ? But, Socrates would have asked us, what do you 
mean by " knowing " ? Surely not the ability to repeat a lot 
of words after a person ? For me only a living conviction is 
knowledge. — " Knowledge," as we often understand it, was 
something wholly foreign to the Greeks : they had no school 
instruction in which the memory was crammed with the 
" knowledge" of others, particularly no instruction in morals 
and religion. But whenever moral maxims and judgments 
were inculcated in their youth, as, for example, by the study 
of Homer, they embodied ethical conceptions which were 
thoroughly intelligible to the natural man. They did not 
discriminate, as we do, between a moral creed conned by rote 
and a morality of the heart. — When, however, his reflec- 
tions carried a philosopher beyond the popular conceptions 



62 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

to new views ; when Socrates, for example, found that it 
was not as disgraceful to suffer injustice as to do injustice, 
these were not mere empty words for school children to 
learn by heart, but represented the personal convictions of 
the thinker, which could not fail to influence him in his 
actions. 

And when Epictetus tells his pupils that the wise man is 
independent of fate, because everything that really concerns 
him is in his power, while whatever is not in his power does 
not concern him, his words are not merely intended to be 
memorized and recited at confirmations or at final college 
examinations, but they stand for real experiences, and are 
therefore capable of arousing strong convictions. Hence I 
am inclined to believe that there was for the Greeks, and 
particularly for the Greek philosophers, more truth in the 
proposition, No one is voluntarily bad, than it seems to us to 
contain. Mere school and word knowledge, of course, is 
powerless, but real knowledge, knowledge that represents real 
personal convictions, cannot fail to influence life. 

Scientific research, therefore, or philosophy, occupied a 
position in the personal life of the Greek philosophers which 
it does not necessarily hold at present, the position, namely, 
of an end-in-itself. But another factor helped to make spec- 
ulative life valuable. For the Greek, practical life was syn- 
onymous with political life. He entertained a low opinion of 
industrial activity, it was regarded as vulgar ; even the pro- 
fession of the artist did not escape his contempt. 1 No one 

1 This is clearly shown in a little treatise of Lucian's, The Dream, a work, by 
the way, which is very characteristic of the Greek mode of thought. Science 
and Art appear in a dream before the boy Lucian ; each tries to persuade 
him to devote himself to her. In response to the speech of Plastic Art, who 
holds that she has a claim upon him, because his ancestors were followers of 
hers, Science answers : " You have heard from this person here what advan- 
tages you could hope to obtain if you were to become a stone-mason. You would 
eventually be nothing more than an obscure manual laborer, who depends 
solely upon his hands for his success, receiving not much more pay than a 
day -laborer, base and narrow in your mode of thought, having no influence in the 



THE GREEK CONCEPTION 63 

ever dreamed of doing deeds of charity, to which Christian 
orders devote themselves. Statesmanship, political and mili- 
tary leadership, was the only profession left. Now, public 
life in the smaller Grecian city-states had reached such 
a stage, since the fifth century, that it is not hard to 
understand why an honest man should have lost all desire 
to have anything to do with it. The popular assemblies and 
law-courts were the battle-grounds on which the party-leaders 
and orators waged bitter war against each other ; they strug- 
gled to get hold of " the latch of legislation," the decree of 
the people, in order that they might kill their opponents, or 
banish them and confiscate their property. The execution 
of Socrates luridly shows the horrible state of insecurity 
prevailing in the Greek cities ; it is as though a band of 
half-grown boys had obtained possession of the sword of 
the magistracy and were now playing havoc with it. In- 
deed, this is exactly the impression of Greek political life 
which we get from the history of Thucydides ; the cities and 
the parties in every city spent their time in aimless and repul- 
sive bickerings, they exhibited such baseness and malice, such 
cruelty and vindictiveness towards the vanquished, as would 
fill us with aversion, were it not for our deep sympathy with a 
nation otherwise so gloriously endowed. We can easily 
understand why men who scrupled against employing the 
means with which battles were waged and victories won in 
the popular assemblage, decided to have nothing whatever 
to do with politics ; most of the later philosophers followed 
the example of Plato, " who, in the storm of dust and sleet 

state, equally incapable of making yourself useful to your friends and dangerous 
to your enemies. — And suppose you should become a Phidias or a Polyclet, and 
had created a great number of admirable works, every one who saw them would, 
it is true, extol your art, but surely no one among all your admirers would, so 
long as he was in his right mind, desire to be what you are. For, however great 
you might become in your line, you would always be regarded as a miserable 
handicraftsman, who is compelled to make his living by the work of his 
hands." These remarks express Lucian's own view, which was evidently the 
new of all cultured Greeks. 



64 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

which the driving wind hurries along, retiring under the 
shelter of a wall," withdrew from public life. Reflections 
upon the theme that the philosopher cannot be a politician 
(rbv <ro<j>bv fir) TroXneveaOaL) are common among the later 
philosophers. Hence there was but one thing left to them — 
philosophy. 



CHAPTER II 

THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF LIFE* 

1. The conversion of the ancient world to Christianity was 
the greatest revolution which European humanity experienced. 
It meant the complete overthrow of all their theories of life, 
the " transformation of all values " {Die Umwertung alter 
Werte), to use Nietzsche's expression. In order to draw the 
lines as sharply as possible, I shall attempt, first of all, to con- 
trast the Christian doctrine of self-denial in its harsh grandeur 
with the Greek doctrine of self-preservation. The world 
always tends to compromises and conciliations ; they are not 
wanting in ancient Christianity, and in the Middle Ages they 
are very common, still more so in the development of the 
Christianity of modern times, as will be seen later on. Here 
I should like to accentuate the fundamental difference between 
the Greek and the Christian conception — sharply and one- 
sidedly if you please — as Christianity itself conceived it at its 
entrance into the ancient world. The Greek affirmation of the 
world ( Weltbej ahung) and the Christian negation of the world 
(Weltiiberwindung*), these are the two paths open to man. 2 

1 [See, besides the works of Sidgwick, Wundt, Jodl, Janet, Eucken, mentioned 
on p. 35 : Gass, Gesckichte der christlichen Ethih ; Bestmann, Geschichte der 
christlichen Sitte ; Ziegler, Geschichte der christlichen Ethih ; Luthardt, Geschichte, 
der christlichen Ethih ; Lecky, History of European Morals ; Ueberweg, History 
of Philosophy, vol. II., §§ 4 and 5 ; Baur, Das Christenthum der drei ersten Jahr- 
hunderte (Engl, transl. by Allan Menzies) ; Harnack, Dogmengeschichte ; Fisher, 
The Beginnings of Christianity. Consnlt also the standard Lives of Christ and 
church histories. For further bibliographical references, see the beginning of the 
second volume of Ueberweg ; also Weber-Thilly, p. 9, note 2. — Tr.] 

2 The exposition which follows has been criticised, on the ground that it rep- 
resents Christianity as a weak, meek, world-weary, down-trodden, ascetic affair. 
That is not the impression which I intended to create. Christianity was at firit 

5 



66 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

The Greeks regarded the perfect development of the natural 
powers of man as the great aim of life. Christianity, on the 
other hand, clearly and consciously sets up the opposite as the 
goal of life : the death of the natural, and the resurrection of 
a new, supernatural man. " Except a man be born again," so 
Christ teaches Nicodemus, "he cannot see the kingdom of 
God " ; the repentance {jxztclvqkx) which Christ demands, with 
John the Baptist, 1 is in truth a regeneration. The old and 
the new man are opposed to each other as the flesh (adplj*) 
and the spirit (7rvev/jLa). 2 Paul logically defines this antithe- 
sis : there is a twofold life, the life after the flesh and the life 
after the spirit; the former the life of the natural man, the 
latter, the effect of grace ; the former intent upon perishable 
things and leading to death, the latter turned toward eternity 
and leading to eternal life : " for he that soweth to his flesh 
shall of the flesh reap corruption ; but he that soweth to the 
spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting." 3 The new life 
is the death of the old ; through the spirit the deeds of the 
body are mortified. 4 

This character of the new religion is expressed in its sacred 
acts. We enter into Christianity through baptism; it is 
called by Paul a likeness (o/W&)/xa) 5 of the death of Jesus ; 

certainly not a negative, but a very positive thing ; it was not characterized by 
feelings of depression and dejection, but by a feeling of cheerful certainty, the 
certainty of possessing a treasure beyond all other treasures. And from this 
conviction sprang the proud feeling of freedom, with which the Christian opposed 
the " world " and its regulations, society and its conventional values, the law and 
its pedantic formalism. — But my main purpose here was to contrast it sharply 
with the Greek conception of life and morality, and hence I first considered 
Christianity from its negative side, the side which distinguishes it as something 
entirely new in the world. Besides, Christianity now and then becomes conscious 
of its original negative relation to the " world " and the kingdom which is of this 
world, and so, in my opinion, regains some of its pristine essence and strength. 
A Christianity entirely reconciled and at peace with the world is a weak and 
powerless affair, and surely not the real and original Christianity. True Chris- 
tianity may always be recognized by the fact that it seems strange and danger- 
ous to the world. 

1 Math., iv., 17. 

2 John, iii., 6. * Rom., viii., 13. 
• Gal., Ti., 8. * Rom., vi., 5. 



THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 67 

a very intelligible symbol, so long as Christianity was at war 
with the world ; it was a serious reminder of the bloody bap- 
tism which might follow the water baptism. The other sacra- 
ment is no less suggestive of death ; by eating the body and 
drinking the blood of Jesus, the believers celebrate the mem- 
ory of his sacrificial death, themselves forming a community 
consecrated to a bloody sacrifice. It is likewise worthy of 
note that the new churches usually also served as burial- 
places, that the bones of the martyrs were interred in the 
altar itself. The natural man dreads contact with death ; it is 
a pollution, according to the Greek as well as the Jewish con- 
ception, even in the religious sense, while to the Christian, 
death is a familiar thought; it is the entrance into life. 

2. The entire Christian life is permeated with this concep- 
tion. What the old or the natural man desires or values is 
regarded by the new man as worthless or dangerous; and 
conversely, the sufferings and privations which the former 
seeks to escape, the latter regards as salutary and beneficial. 
Let me point out the main differences between the two theories 
of life. 

The perfection and exercise of the intellectual capacities 
seemed to the Greeks a highly important, to their philosophers 
an absolutely necessary, function of human life. The attitude 
of primitive Christianity towards reason and natural knowl- 
edge is one of contempt and distrust. The poor in spirit are 
blessed by Jesus; the people who follow him are poor and 
uncultured ; what is hidden from the wise and prudent is 
revealed to children. Nay, natural reason and wisdom are 
really a stumbling-block to the kingdom of God, the preach- 
ing of the cross is foolishness to it. " Where is the wise ? " 
Paul asks the congregation at Corinth, 1 " where is the scribe ? 
where is the disputer of this world ? hath not God made 
foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the 
wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased 

1 1 Cor. I, 20. 



68 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that 
believe." 

The church did not strictly adhere to this view ; as a church 
she could not adhere to it. When she began to dominate the 
entire life of the peoples, she was compelled to press into her 
service the most important instrument of temporal power, 
knowledge. But primitive Christianity stood in no posi- 
tive relation to worldly, scientific knowledge. " The form of 
a servant, the spiritual form, disappeared in the third century 
when brilliant teachers of the church and even rich bishops 
appeared ; but in its poor form Christianity overcame the 
world." 2 And we may note the after-effects of this original 
relation in the entire history of the Christian church life : I 
am thinking not merely of the Christian's distrust of scientific 
investigation and the law of obedience, which the intellect, too, 
was expected to observe — a law, it is true, which often sprang 
from very worldly motives — but, above all, of that simplicity 
of heart which always succeeded in minimizing, among all 
true believers in Christ, those differences of culture and 
knowledge, which hinder the free interchange of thought in 
the personal intercourse of the worldly-minded. And deeply 
religious natures have always shown an aversion to puffed-up 
learning, to the spirit of criticism and negation, which springs 
from arrogance and begets arrogance, to the mania for 
systems, and to scientific pride. 

Hence the virtues of the intellect, freedom and boldness of 
thought and the power to doubt, the vital principle of scien- 
tific research, are, in the eyes of primitive Christianity; 
worthless and dangerous. Faith and obedience are becoming 
to the Christian. 

3. Like the virtues of the intellect, so are also the ethical 
virtues of the Greeks, which are nothing but natural impulses 
educated and disciplined by the reason, worthless and dan- 
gerous, according to the conception of primitive Christianity ; 

1 Hase, Kirchengeschichte, 1, 258. 



THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 69 

the more dangerous because they seem good : they are splen* 
did vices. " Though it may seem laudable that the soul govern 
the body, and reason the vicious impulses, yet the soul and 
reason itself, cannot by any means, unless it serve God, as 
God himself has prescribed it, govern them in the right way. 
For what kind of a lord of the body and of the vices can a 
mind be, which, being ignorant of the true God and not sub- 
ject to his governance, is prostituted and corrupted by the 
demons polluted with all the vices ? And the virtues them- 
selves, if they bear no relation to God, are in truth vices 
rather than virtues ; for although they are regarded by many 
as truly moral when they are desired as ends in themselves 
and not for the sake of something else, they are, nevertheless, 
inflated and arrogant (inflatce ao superbce), and therefore 
not to be viewed as virtues but as vices." This is St. 
Augustine's opinion of all purely human virtues. 1 

4. In the opinion of the natural man, courage is the chief 

1 De Civitate Dei, xix., 25. — In his Confessions he moralizes upon his own past 
life from this standpoint : everything natural and human in it was an alienation 
from God and therefore reprehensible. With tiresome monotony he passes from 
one period of his life to the other, and shows the emptiness and baseness of all 
those acts of his which sprang from his natural impulses. That the nursling 
cried for the breast, that the boy took pleasure in his sports and the youth in 
rhetorical exercises, that he was ambitious for distinction and fame, that he was 
devoted to friends and followed his natural sexual impulses, that he admired 
distinguished teachers and dedicated his maiden works to a revered man, that as a 
teacher he gathered young men about him and joyfully and zealously instructed 
them in knowledge and in eloquence, that he passionately searched for the truth 
and believed that he would find it in the philosophers : all this he now condemns 
from his newly acquired Christian-ecclesiastical standpoint : it was nothing but 
vanity, foolishness, and carnal corruption. One point alone, which the purely 
numan judgment would perhaps regard as the blackest spot in the previous life 
of the Saint, he passes over without a single word of blame; his resolution, 
namely, to abandon a woman who had been his mistress for years, and who had 
borne him a son, and, at the instigation of his mother, to marry a woman of his 
own rank. This resolution — which his mistress prevented him from carrying 
out — this intended act of faithlessness to a woman whom he loved, but could 
not marry for social reasons, he passes over without a complaint, without a word 
of self-reproach, only to condemn himself violently immediately after for his in- 
ability to resist his longing for her even after the separation. So completely do 
his feelings differ from the natural human feelings. 



TO ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

virtue ; it is, as Greek and Roman popular usage implies, 
the virtue or excellence as such, and its absence is equivalent 
to absolute unworthiness. Courage is based upon the impulse 
of self-preservation ; it ensures the success of the ego and its 
claims in the struggle with those opposing it. The Christian, 
who obeys the law of God, " resists not evil," he does not 
combat it, but endures it ; patience or patient waiting {viro/jiovrj) 
is his courage. He does not wield the sword. The sword is 
the instrument by which to obtain one's share of the world ; 
the Christian has and desires no part in the world ; his 
heritage is in the future world, it cannot be won or lost by 
the sword. The old church is thoroughly imbued with the 
thought that a Christian cannot wield the sword. Even 
though the times soon accommodated themselves to the 
necessities of life, we can hardly suppose that they did so 
without some misgivings. Christian soldiers were, beyond 
doubt, regarded as an anomaly in the congregation, during 
the earlier centuries. Tertullian expresses the conviction of 
the primitive Christian, though in a more emphatic and 
categorical manner, when he says : " It is impossible to swear 
fealty to God and to man, to serve under the banner of Christ 
and under the standard of the devil, in the camp of light and 
in the camp of darkness ; one soul cannot serve two masters, 
God and the Emperor. When the Lord deprived Peter of the 
sword, he disarmed all." * It surely seemed an absolute con- 
tradiction for a clericus to wear the sword. Among all the 
sects which renew the old Christian mode of life, the dread 
of shedding blood at once reappears in its original strength. 
The same feeling asserts itself against capital punishment. 

How far removed the modern world is from the old Christian 
conception is perhaps nowhere so clearly seen as here : the 
fear of the sword and of bloodshed has wholly disappeared 
— disappeared even from the church. The great military 
heroes are the national saints of the modern nations, the 

1 De idoJoJatria, chapter 19. 



THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 71 

anniversaries of victorious battles are celebrated as public 
holidays, the streets and squares of our cities are named after 
bloody battle-fields. In the schools our children learn the 
history of wars, which comprises the chief part of the history 
of mankind ; the victories of our nation over our neighbors are 
regarded as its most important and grandest achievements. 
In the churches prayers are offered every Sunday for the 
royal arms on water and on land. The modern Christian 
has no fault to find with all this — a sure sign that he differs 
from the primitive Christian, who proved his courage solely 
by his patient suffering and heroic martyrdom. 1 

5. Related to the virtue of courage is the virtue of justice, 
by which we mean that strong sense of justice which every- 
where insists upon the right, the right of others as well as of 
self. Not to do wrong is one side of justice ; its comple- 
ment is not to permit wrong to be done, either to self or to 
others. This is what the Greeks and Romans understood by 
the duty of justice, and so Jhering has recently interpreted 
it in his book, TJte Battle for the Right? The law-suit, or 
the legal battle for the right, is the civil form of self-preser- 
vation and self-assertion, of which the sword is the military 
form. 

Primitive Christianity does not recognize justice in this 
sense as a virtue ; it is acquainted with only one side of it, 
with the duty not to do wrong, not with the duty not to per- 
mit wrong. It does not say : If a man injures you and tram- 
ples upon your rights, you ought or are allowed to resist him 
by lawful means ; but the law of Moses : An eye for an eye, a 
tooth for a tooth, is expressly abrogated and replaced by a 
new law : " But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil 
(t&> TTovrjpq)'), but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right 
cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue 
thee at law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak 

1 [See Herbert Spencer, Induction of Ethics, §§ 115, 118, 192. — T*-l 
* Der Kampf urns Recht. 



72 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

also, and whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with 
him twain." * And a few verses further back we read : 2 
"Agree with thine adversary (tg5 avTihlfcw) quickly, while 
thou art in the way with him." Hence not only anger and 
hatred and private revenge, but law-suits are explicitly pro- 
hibited. This is also St. Paul's notion of it : he strictly for- 
bids the Corinthians to go to law before heathen judges, 
before the unjust, who are not esteemed in the church : 
" Is it so that there is not a wise man among you ? no, not 
one that shall be able to judge between his brethren ? " And 
then he proceeds : " Now therefore there is utterly a fault 
among you, because ye go to law with one another. Why do 
ye not rather take wrong ? Why do ye not rather suffer 
yourselves to be defrauded ? " 3 Even though this law was not 
always observed among the old Christians, it was undoubtedly 
recognized as binding ; they felt the same dread of the law- 
suit as a means of defending their individual rights as of 
the sword. 4 

In this respect, too, the difference between modern and 
primitive Christianity is apparent enough. We regard it as 
the most natural thing in the world to go to law for our 
rights, or to turn over to the judge for punishment a man 
who has damaged our body and life, our honor and property. 
I am not saying that this is right or wrong ; all I mean to 
imply is that in doing these things we are undoubtedly acting 
contrary to the spirit of primitive Christianity. 

6. This determined the attitude of the Christian towards 

1 Matt., v., 38-41. 2 Verse 25. 8 1 Cor., vi., 7. 

4 It must be confessed, however, that a passage in the Gospel {Matt., xviii., 
15-17) inclines to a more positive treatment of this side of life : " Moreover, if 
thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee 
and him alone : if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he 
will not hear thee, then take with thee ,one or two more, that in the mouth of 
two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect 
to hear them, tell it unto the church ; but if he neglect to hear the church, let 
him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican/' However, not a single 
word is said of the law-suit and the law. 



THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 73 

fche state. The Greek and Roman regarded participation in 
the affairs of state as the highest and most important duty of 
man. The primitive Christian, who did not value the fund- 
amental political virtues, courage and the sense of justice, 
looked upon the state as something alien to himself and the 
inner principle of his life : in the state men wrangle over the 
things of this world, employing the means of this world ; war 
and courts of justice are its two fundamental functions. The 
primitive Christian's attitude to this entire institution was one 
of forbearance. He formed a part of it, as he formed a part 
of the world in general, as a stranger and a pilgrim ; he had 
even less interest in it than the member of another state. — 
As a passive citizen, however, his conduct was exemplary : 
he was obedient in all things which were not contrary to his 
divine mission ; he willingly paid taxes ; he obeyed all laws 
which prohibited wrong-doing, not only on account of the 
punishment, but for conscience' sake, and in so far as the 
magistracy realized justice, it was recognized as the order and 
instrument of God. When, however, he was asked to act in vio- 
lation of his conscience, then, of course, he could not obey ; he 
would not sacrifice to the gods or to the Emperor, nor swear 
in their name ; he thereby declared that there was something 
higher for him than the state, namely the kingdom of God, of 
which he considered himself a citizen, and he would allow no 
command of earthly rulers to turn him aside from the duties 
which this citizenship imposed upon him. But here, too, 
he rendered obedience in so far as he accepted the punishment 
which was inflicted upon him, without opposition and complaint. 
— Hence the Christians were both submissive to authority and 
yet inwardly free in their attitude to the state, something which 
the ancient citizen neither could be nor cared to be. — Can a 
Christian be an officer of the state ? In the earlier times there 
was little occasion for discussing the question : it was not the 
powerful and the noble after the flesh who first came to the 
community of Christ, but the ignoble and the despised in the 



74 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

eyes of the world. It would undoubtedly have been regarded 
as a strange contradiction to serve both the crucified one and 
the lord of this world. In Tertullian the spirit of primitive 
Christianity strongly protests against the gradual seculariza- 
tion of the church. " By despising the power and the glory 
of this world," he declares, 1 " the Lord rejected it and 
condemned it, and reckoned it among the things which are 
the pride of the devil. If they were his, he would not have 
condemned them ; but that which is not of God can belong to 
no one but the devil. And this, too, may remind you that all 
the powers and dignitaries of this world are not only foreign 
to God, but hostile to him, the fact namely, that they condemn 
the servants of God to death, but forget the punishments 
which are intended for criminals." Even as late as the year 
305 the synod of Elvira decreed : Whoever holds the office 
of duumvir must stand aloof from the church during his term 
of office. 2 Not until the conversion of Constantine, when 
Christianity became a state religion, did a complete change 
take place : now the officers of the state became the repre- 
sentatives and the defenders of " Christianity," and the clergy 
in a sense became state officers. And at present many are 
perhaps inclined to believe, reversing the words of Paul, 8 that 
the preservation of Christianity is the especial business of the 
wise and powerful, the cultured and high-born, and that it 
would die out if the princes and lords of this world and their 
servants did not take care of it. 

7. The fourth cardinal virtue, after wisdom, courage, and 
justice, is, according to the Greek conception, o-ocxfcpocrvvri, or 
temperance. It is the state of the healthy-minded man, who 
understands the art of moderate and beautiful enjoyment, and 
can also do without things when necessary. Greek education 
endeavored to cultivate this virtue : by means of the gym- 

1 De idol., chap. 18. 

2 Uhlhorn, Die christliche Liebesthatigkeit in der alten Kirche, p. 356. See alsa 
Gass, Geschichte der christlichen Ethik (1881), i, 92 ff. 

« 1 Cor., i. 26. 



THE CHKISTIAN CONCEPTION 75 

nastic and musical arts, the two phases of education, it strove 
to inculcate in the body and the soul of the young the power of 
self-control and the faculty of enjoying themselves beautifully. 
The gymnastic and musical contests formed the climax of 
national pleasure ; to participate in them, as a competitor for 
the wreath and as a spectator, was culture (rraiZevcris). 

The attitude of primitive Christianity towards enjoyment 
was an entirely different one, and hence could not recognize 
this virtue, or only recognize its negative side, as in the case 
of justice : the ability to resist the allurements of pleasure. 
The Christian fled from earthly-sensuous pleasure in every 
form; even though it might not be sinful in itself, it was 
too apt to endanger the soul, by fettering it to that which 
is earthly and perishable, and impeding the free flight of the 
spirit to eternity. With fearful earnestness Jesus commands 
us to pluck out and cast from us every member that offends 
us : for it is better to enter into glory lame and disfigured 
and without eyes, " than that thy whole body should be cast 
into hell." " Love not the world, neither the things that are 
in the world. If any man love the world the love of the Father 
is noo in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the 
flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of 
the Father, but is of the world." So the Apostle John ad- 
monishes the Christians in his first letter, debarring not 
merely coarse sensuous pleasure, but also aesthetical pleasure 
(the lust of the eyes) and everything that makes this life 
glorious and grand (aXa^oveia tov fiiov) in the eyes of the 
children of this world. So, too, the first letter of Peter 1 
beseeches the brethren : as strangers and pilgrims to abstain 
from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul. And Paul does 
not weary of admonishing those who are of Christ to crucify 
the flesh. Nowhere, however, are we exhorted to make the 
body and the soul capable of enjoying the beautiful pleasures 
of life, or to train the physical and spiritual powers for par* 

1 ii., 11. 



76 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

ticipation in gymnastic exercises and games, or in the cheerful 
play of poetry and art. The education of a Christian has an 
entirely different object in view from the education of the 
Greek : it must open our eyes to the vanity and transitoriness 
of this life, and to its awful seriousness, inasmuch as the 
eternal life depends upon how we live here. Musical and 
gymnastic arts, however, are not suited to prepare us for 
eternal life ; they are sown in the flesh and are raised in cor- 
ruption. How can a Christian who aspires to the imperish- 
able crown strive after the virtues by which wreaths are 
won at heathen games ? Who can find pleasure in the fables 
of the poets, when he can hear the words of the Lord and 
the apostles ? How can he strive for " culture " who is 
struggling for " holiness " ? All this is so self-evident that 
it does not even have to be mentioned : in a true Christian 
even the desire for such things is inconceivable. 

Among the Christians it is not culture and eloquence that 
are prized, but silence. Silence is the first duty recommended 
by Ambrosius in his work on the duties of the clergy i 1 "It is 
written : By thy words thou shalt be condemned. Hence why 
wilt thou rush into the danger of perdition by speaking, when 
thou mayst be safe by keeping silence ? I have seen many fall 
into sin by speaking, but hardly a single one by keeping 
silence. Hence he is wise who can be silent." And soon after 
he says : 2 " There may be decent and amiable jests, but they 
are not compatible with the rules of the church ; how can 
we make use of that which does not appear in the Scriptures. 
We must also avoid the fables of the poets, lest they weaken 
the firmness of our resolutions. Woe unto you that laugh 
now, for ye shall mourn and weep : so says the Lord ; and 
shall we seek for matter to laugh at here that we may weep 
hereafter ? I believe we must not only avoid wanton jests, 
but all jests ; one thing alone is proper : a mouth full of 
sweetness and grace." 

1 De off. ministrorum, I., 2. 2 I., 28. 



THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 77 

8. This also determines the attitude of Christianity to 
earthly goods. Since wealth is, first of all, a means to sen- 
suous good living, and secondly, to beautiful enjoyment and 
culture, he who does not value these things, cannot approve 
of the means which make them possible. Riches have no 
value for the Christian ; he has enough when he possesses 
what suffices to satisfy his daily needs. But riches are not 
only worthless, they are dangerous. There is, of course, 
nothing sinful in possession as such, in itself it is abso- 
lutely indifferent; but wealth is a serious menace to the 
owner, in so far as it constantly tempts him to use it, and thus 
enslaves the soul. Nothing recurs so frequently in the Gospels 
as the warning against the dangers of riches. It seems 
almost impossible to Jesus that a rich man should enter into 
the kingdom of God ; it is easier for a camel to go through 
the eye of a needle. Wealth makes us eager for this world 
and careless of the hereafter, as the rich man learned when 
he reaped a good harvest and soon began to meditate what 
to do and where to bestow his fruits ; wealth sates us and 
makes us indifferent to the wants of our neighbors, as 
Dives learned before whose door poor Lazarus lay ; wealth 
alienates God from us, for he allows no other God beside 
himself: ye cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore, 
Jesus commanded his disciples that they should take noth- 
ing for their journey : no scrip, no bread, no money in their 
purse, when he sent them out to preach ; and it surely was 
not an accident that Judas, who carried the purse, most likely 
because he was the ablest financier of the twelve, should have 
turned traitor. Hence the urgent entreaty to the good young 
man to give up his riches : " Go thy way, sell whatever thou 
hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in 
heaven." 

Interpreters of the Gospel are in the habit of protesting 
against the misconception that Christ actually commanded 
the young man to give up his riches. Clement of Alexandria 



78 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

earlj r pointed out, in his discussion of the question, What Rich 
Man will be Saved ? that the command to sell everything 
and give to the poor, did not mean, as some hastily assume, 
that he should abandon his possessions, but merely his false 
opinions with respect to them, his love and greed for them. 
This ingenious discovery has been made over and over again. 
According to the same art of interpretation, we might reason : 
When a mother tells her child who has taken hold of a sharp 
knife, to lay the knife aside, this does not mean that he should 
put it down, but only that he should not cut himself with it ; 
that he may keep the knife. — Would the young man have 
gone away grieved if Jesus himself had thus interpreted his 
saying for him ? I believe he would at once have replied : 
" This have I observed from my youth." 

Here, again, I am not deciding whether the command of 
Jesus ought to be obeyed, or whether it could possibly be 
obeyed universally ; I am simply defending its true and un- 
mistakable meaning against all sorts of interpretations which 
attempt to bring the Gospel into harmony with the world. 
We hear it said that the fulfilment of this law would destroy 
oiir entire civilized life. It is very probable that it would. 
But what does that prove ? Where is it written that it 
should be preserved ? Tertullian answers the objection of 
those who refused to obey the law against the pursuit 
of handicrafts or trades relating to heathen worship, on the 
ground that they must live, by asking the question: Must 
you live ? What companionship have you with God, if you 
desire to live according to your own laws ? You will suffer 
want ? But the Lord calls those that suffer blessed. You 
cannot support yourselves ? But the Lord says : Take no 
thought for your life ; consider the lilies of the field. 

9. Let us now compare the Greek with the Christian view 
of honor. According to the Greek conception, the love of 
honor is a virtue : the just man desires to be the first in his 
sphere (7rp<oT€veiv), and to be esteemed as such. Noble pride, 



THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 79 

high-mindedness (fieyaXo'^rv'^la), is the intensification of the 
proper love of honor. The high-minded man regards himself 
as worthy of high things, and is worthy of them : so Aristotle 
defines him, completing the picture with many delicate 
touches. 1 

The virtue of the Christian is humility. Once, when a 
quarrel arose among the disciples about the highest places in 
the new kingdom, Jesus rebuked them : " Ye know that those 
which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lord- 
ship over them : and their great ones exercise authority upon 
them. But so shall it not be among you : but whosoever will 
be great among you, shall be your minister : and whosoever of 
you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all." 2 That is the 
order in the kingdom of heaven, the direct opposite of the 
order in the earthly kingdoms. — And it is perfectly self-evi- 
dent that the Christian neither seeks for nor obtains the glo- 
ries of this world. Before the world he is nothing ; disgrace 
and ridicule are his glory, as Jesus declares to his disciples. 
And he calls them blessed for it : " Blessed are ye when men 
shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of 
evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding 
glad : for great is your reward in heaven : for so persecuted 
they the prophets which were before you." 8 And the Gospel of 
St. Luke, which is still more emphatic in its opposition to the 
world, adds : " Woe unto you when all men shall speak well 
of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets." 4 

This humility does not exclude, but rather has as its ob- 
verse, a harsh pride, the pride which scorns and despises the 
world and everything that is in it and is esteemed by it. 
Humble before God and the weak and lowly, but proud 
towards those who think well of themselves and bask in the 
light of their glory : that too is a fundamental characteristic of 
the Christian. Both John the Baptist and Christ exhibit thii 

» Nie. Ethics, IV., 7 ff. « Matt., v., 11, 12. 

• Mark, x., 35 ff. * y \^ 2 6. 



SO ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

honest, fearless, nay, defiant pride towards the great and the 
respectable, the Sadducees and Pharisees, the high-priest and 
the Roman governor. And we also occasionally find this 
pride in later disciples of Jesus, who have turned their backs 
upon the world and now frankly tell it that they neither 
desire nor esteem its glory and its honor, its virtue and its 
grandeur; for which the world, as is to be expected, pays 
them back in hatred and disgrace. 

So long as Christianity retained its original relation to the 
world, to be disgraced in the eyes of the world was the mark 
of a Christian ; whenever the church made her peace with 
the world, and sects began to separate from her, in order to 
live after the primitive Christian fashion, men again began to 
regard it as a necessary test of true Christianity to suffer 
disgrace in the name of Christ. A. H. Francke tells us in his 
autobiography that when he was a diligent and respectable 
studiosus theologice, intending to become a very elegant and 
learned man, " the world was well pleased with him. I 
loved the world, and the world loved me. I was entirely free 
from persecution then." After his conversion, however, 
he tells us, things changed ; then, for the first time, he dis- 
covered what the world was, and in what it differed from the 
children of God, for soon it began to despise and to hate 
him. 

It is, therefore, true that all Greek virtues are, in the light 
of Christianity, splendid vices; they are all rooted in the 
natural man's impulse of self-preservation, in the impulse of 
knowledge, in the impulse of revenge, in the desire for culture, 
in the love of honor; they represent the perfection of his 
nature in perfect civilization. It is true that nothing less 
than the death of the old and the birth of a new man is neces- 
sary to transform a Greek into a Christian. Nothing that 
was prized among the Greeks was prized by the Christians, 
and conversely, nothing that was prized by the latter wap 
prized by the former. It is true that the virtues of the Greek 



THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 81 

are an impediment to regeneration : the publicans and sinners, 
those who have failed with their natural strength and virtue, 
and now look back upon a wrecked life, are far more apt to 
suffer a great and radical change of heart than the just. 
Through sin and suffering leads the path to conversion. 

10. For the natural virtues of the Greeks, Christianity 
substitutes a single new one : pity or mercy. To love your 
neighbors, to take pity upon their misery, to feed the hungry, to 
give drink to the thirsty, to visit the outcast, nay, not even to 
resist the evil, to forgive and to do good unto those that hate 
you and persecute you, — that is the ideal which Jesus places 
before his disciples, and lives out himself. By this pity we 
are not to understand weak-hearted dolefulness, nor by the 
love of enemy, tender-hearted compliance. The obverse of 
these virtues is a passionate anger against those who cause 
such misery, or at least harden their hearts against it, against 
the unjust and selfish lords who devour the substance of the 
widows and orphans, against those well-fed and self-righteous 
respectable persons, who see the wretchedness of the people 
and complaisantly say : It is their own fault ; why are they 
not virtuous like us, for then they would prosper as we do. 
Compassionate love is the great virtue which Jesus preaches, 
and self-righteous hardness of heart the great vice upon which 
he pronounces harsh judgments. For all he has a word of 
pity and love, the lost sons and daughters of his people he 
takes to his heart, the woman who has sinned much he raises 
up, the thief on the cross who confesses his sins he promises 
to meet in paradise : only for the virtuous and self-righteous 
Pharisee who is not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, 
adulterers, or even as this publican, he has harsh words ; only 
for the servant who cannot forgive his fellow-servant he has 
no forgiveness. 

Now, the Greeks are as unfamiliar with the vice of self- 
righteousness as with the virtue of pity. 

As the normal condition of the feeling of self-esteem the 



82 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

Greek regards the consciousness of individual power and ex* 
cellence ; it is the necessary accompaniment of the thing 
itself. His morality warns him against arrogance ({//3/3t<?), 
which makes a man despised before gods and men, but it warns 
him no less against the opposite, lowliness of mind {raTreivo- 
fypovelv). The Greek is proud of his virtues, he has acquired 
them himself, they are the fruits of hard labor. " In one re- 
spect," says Seneca, 1 " the wise man excels God ; the latter 
owes it to his nature that he fears nothing, the wise man owes 
it to himself." "I die without remorse," said the dying 
Julian, " as I have lived without sin." — On the other hand, 
lowliness of mind (Taireivofypovelv) is the beginning of Chris- 
tianity. Conversion begins with remorse and penitence, and 
the feeling of powerlessness and sinfulness is one of the funda- 
mental moods of the Christian ; he prays every day with the 
publican : God have mercy upon me a sinner. A remarkable 
statement by the Princess A. von Galitzin expresses this 
mood in a somewhat morbid form, and at the same time be- 
trays the curious logic peculiar to Christian humility : " An 
important element of Hamann's spirit and teachings has clung 
to me, the conviction, namely, that the desire for a good con- 
science would be a very dangerous leaven in me, and that one 
of the chief features of faith must be that I suffer the thought 
of my nothingness and completely trust in God's mercy. I 
plainly saw that the feeling of complacency aroused by my dis- 
satisfaction with my own imperfection and weakness, would be 
the most concealed and dangerous hiding-place of my pride." 2 
Just as self-righteousness is not one of the vices of the 
Greek, pity is not one of his virtues. In the list in which 
Aristotle enumerates 3 the qualities esteemed as virtues by 
the Greeks, mercy finds no place. In its stead we discover a 
kind of heathen counterpart to it : liberality (eXevOepior-qs), 

1 Epist., 53. 

2 Correspondence and Diary of Vie Princes* Galitzin, new series, 1876, p. 359. 
8 Book IV., Nieomachean Ethics. 



THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 83 

and the intensified form of the latter, magnificence (fieyaXo- 
irpeTreia), He is liberal, according to Aristotle's version, who 
gives from a noble motive and in a right spirit, who gives the 
right amount, and to the right persons at the right time, and 
satisfies all the other conditions of right giving ; 1 he is mag- 
nificent who spends large sums of money with good taste, 
for example, upon votive offerings to the Gods, or " upon the 
favorite objects of patriotic rivalry, as when people consider 
it their duty to supply a chorus or fit out a trireme or even to 
give a public dinner in handsome style." 2 But here the im- 
portant person is not the recipient of the gift, but the giver, 
the object is not to alleviate suffering, but to glorify the name 
of the benefactor. Not a single word, throughout Aristotle's 
long discussion, is said of the neediness of the recipient; 
compassion plays no part as a motive. The climax of mag- 
nificence and munificence was reached in Rome ; from the 
booty stolen from all the nations of the earth the Roman 
lords gave to the populace of the metropolis money and bread, 
theatres and baths. It is obvious that this virtue has noth- 
ing in common with Christian pity. The fundamental char- 
acteristic of Christian charity is self-denial, while liberality 
is a form of self-enjoyment. Pity contemplates the want of 
others, and makes sacrifices to help them, liberality has for 
its object the glorification of the giver. Pity is practised in 
secret; publicity is peculiar to liberality. Pity is bestowed 
upon the stranger, who is nothing to you in the order of 
nature ; liberality, on the other hand, upon relatives, clients, 
and fellow-citizens. 

Christian charity does not spring from the natural impulse 
to enjoy one's own superiority by giving help, nor is it rooted 
in the natural impulses of sympathy which grow out of gen- 
eric life and unite man with his neighbor. The story of 
the good Samaritan shows this phase. It is the answer 
to the question: And who is my neighbor, whom I shall 
1 Book IV., chap. 2 ft. * Chapter! 4 and 5. 



84 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

love? The natural man answers: My family, my children, 
my parents, my wife, my relatives, the members of my house- 
hold, my neighbors, fellow-countrymen, and co-religionists. 
That must have been the opinion of the scribe also. Jesus 
enlightens him : Not these, but the very first man whom you 
happen to meet, and who is in want. For this is evidently 
the meaning of the somewhat perverted ending of our account. 
The commentary to it may be found in the verses which 
substitute the commandment of brotherly love for the com- 
mandment of Moses, in the Gospel of Matthew. 1 Moses has 
commanded you to love your neighbors and hate your enemies. 
But what would there be so remarkable in that ? Do not even 
the publicans the same ? And if ye salute your brethren only, 
what do ye more than others ? Do not even the heathen the 
same ? Be ye therefore perfect as your Father which is in 
heaven is perfect. He makes no distinctions in his benefi- 
cence, hence you should not do it either, unless it be, perhaps, 
to give strangers preference over your friends : " When thou 
makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy 
brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors ; lest 
also they bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee. 
But when thou makest a feast call the poor, the maimed, the 
lame, the blind, and thou shalt be blessed." 2 The highest, 
however, is to do good even to your enemies ; to suffer evil 
for the sake of the good, and not to bear malice : that is per- 
fection. Savonarola once summed up Christianity in the 
sentence : " My son, to be good means to do good and to 
suffer evil, and not to weary of it to the end." 

11. We may now consider the attitude of Christianity to 
family life. The family is the beginning of all natural charity 
or love of neighbor. Christianity, which never aims at the 
development of natural impulses, cannot, as might at first be 
supposed from the estimate it places on love, regard the 
family as a thing of absolute worth. For it the community 

1 v., 43. 2 Luke, xiv., 12. 



THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 85 

of the flesh is far inferior to the community of the spirit. 
Jesus left his family and gathered around him a new family, 
one not united by the ties of blood, but by spiritual ties ; which 
caused at least a temporary estrangement from his blood- 
relatives. He demands that those who follow him likewise 
sever their natural ties, wherever occasion may demand : " If 
any man come to me and hate not his father, and mother, and 
wife and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea and his own 
life also, he cannot be my disciple." * He knows that his 
preaching will break natural bonds : " For from henceforth 
there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, 
and two against three. The father shall be divided against 
the son, and the son against the father ; the mother against 
the daughter and the daughter against the mother; the 
mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter- 
in-law against her mother-in-law." 2 Natural ties lose their 
importance for those who no longer live in the flesh. 

The ability to sever them altogether has always been 
regarded by the followers of Christ as a criterion of perfec- 
tion. The saints are often openly praised because the ties 
of blood have no power over them. In Hartpole Lecky's 
History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne* 
we find a number of passages from the literature of the 
saints, which show, by way of example, the meritoriousness 
of absolute indifference to blood-relationship. Let me quote 
one of the examples. In Cassian's work, Be coenobiorum 
institutis* we read the following story. A man named 
Mutius, accompanied by his only child, a little boy eight 
years old, abandoned his possessions and demanded admis- 
sion into a monastery. The monks received him, but they 
proceeded to discipline his heart. " He had already forgotten 
that he was rich ; he must next be taught to forget that he was 
a father." His little child was separated from him, clothed in 

1 Luke, xiv., 26 ; somewhat weakened in Matt , x., 34. 

8 Luke, xii., 52 ff. » Vol. II. « IV., *7. 



86 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

dirty rags, subjected to every form of gross and wanton hard* 
ship, spurned, and ill treated. Day after day the father was 
compelled to look upon his boy wasting away with sorrow, 
his once happy countenance forever stained with tears, dis- 
torted by sobs of anguish. But " such was his love for Christ, 
and for the virtue of obedience, that the father's heart was 
rigid and unmoved. He thought little of the tears of his 
child. He was anxious only for his own humility and per- 
fection in virtue." At last the abbot told him to take his 
child and throw it into the river. He proceeded without a 
murmur or apparent pang, to obey, and it was only at the 
last moment that the monks interposed, and on the very 
brink of the river saved the child. 

The story may have been invented in imitation of the 
sacrifice of Isaac; but the admiration which the narrator 
expresses is not an invention. This conduct is, doubtless, 
not in accord with the views of Jesus. We must confess, 
however, that it may be deduced as an extreme consequence 
from certain passages in the Gospels. To the question of 
Peter : " Behold we have forsaken all and followed thee ; 
what shall we have therefore ? " Jesus answers not rebuk- 
ingly, but with the promise that they shall be nearest to 
him in his glory ; " and every one that has forsaken houses, 
or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or 
children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive a hun- 
dredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life." 1 

Such a mode of thought is, of course, not conducive to the 
formation of family ties. Jesus himself remained unmarried, 
and suggests that others, too, may dispense with marriage for 
the kingdom of heaven's sake. 2 

Although the Apostle Paul thinks highly enough of the 
institution of true marriage to refer to it in illustration of 
Christ's relation to the church, he nevertheless shows a de- 
cided preference for unmarried life. The church at Corinth 

1 Matt., xix., 27 fl. * Matt., xix., 12. 



THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 87 

had asked him some questions concerning marriage. In his 
answer 1 he lays special emphasis upon the following sentence 
by placing it at the beginning : " It is good for a man (jcaXov) 
not to touch a woman." Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, 
let every man have his own wife and let every woman have 
her own husband. " I say therefore to the unmarried and 
the widows : It is good for them, if they abide even as I." 
" He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to 
the Lord, how he may please the Lord ; but he that is mar- 
ried careth for the things that are of the world, how he may 
please his wife." This, of course, is not a commandment; 
and those who " cannot contain, let them marry." Similarly, 
in the Apocalypse 2 virginity is regarded as a merit, which 
will also be recognized in the new kingdom. Therefore, 
marriage is permitted on account of the weakness of the 
flesh, but it is nowhere looked upon as a phase of life essential 
to the perfection of human nature. And this thought runs 
through the entire Patristic literature : virginity, the freedom 
from the bondage of sensuality, constitutes a fundamental 
part of perfection. 

12. The starting-point of this radical change is the certainty 
that our earthly life is not the true life. The ancient Greeks 
knew of no other life than this, everything good and beautiful 
and great known to them was contained in it ; the life of the 
dead, which formed the subject of doubtful fables, had for 
them a shadowy existence. And this earthly life is good and 
worth living for him who knows how to live it well : it offers 
everything that a healthy mind can desire. — The ancient 
Christians are absolutely convinced that this temporal life is 
perishable and vain and worthless. Upon our earth the real life 
and the real goods are not to be found ; only the world to come 
(o alwv ixeWoiv) will bring them to light. To this future world, 
which the apostolic times believed was about to be established 
by the return of the Lord, belonged the Christians; in the 

1 I Cor* Yii. * xir., 4. 



88 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

earthly world they are strangers and pilgrims. A traveller 
does not take any active interest in the affairs of a foreign 
country, but bears them as best he can. So the Christians 
behave with respect to this world. They are in the world in 
the flesh only, and their spirit is not at home in it ; they live 
in the world, but their hearts are in heaven ; they do the 
work which living in the world imposes upon them, but they 
have no interest in it. Pleasure and desire are the bonds 
with which the world strives to fetter their hearts ; therefore 
the Christians constantly crucify the flesh with its lusts and 
desires ; the natural man loves pleasure, and flies from pain 
as from something evil ; the Christian, on the other hand, 
looks upon pain as wholesome and upon pleasure as dangerous 
— pleasure is the bait with which the devil ensnares the soul 
in order to chain it to the world. To be dead to the pleasures 
and the pains of the earth is the mark of perfection. 

But it would be a complete misrepresentation of the Chris- 
tian mood to conclude that its chief characteristics are dis- 
content and gloom. Nay, the fundamental feeling is rather 
one of deep tranquil peace, in which are mingled notes of 
sorrow for the vanity and nothingness of the world, notes 
of " divine sadness," but which also contains cheerful strains 
of heavenly joy and hope. World-sorrow and pessimism 
vanish as soon as earthly things cease to excite and to alarm 
the heart with fear and hope, pleasure and disappoint- 
ment. Hence Christianity is not essentially negative, like 
pessimism, but positive : the eternal life which is to come and 
is close at hand overshadows the temporal life. The carnal 
man's natural impulse of self-preservation gives way to the 
supernatural impulse of self-preservation of the spiritual man, 
in accordance with the words of Jesus : " Whosoever shall seek 
to save his life shall lose it ; and whosoever shall lose his life 
shall preserve it ; " 1 or " He that loveth his life shall lose it ; 
and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life 

1 Luke, xrii.. 33. 



THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 89 

eternal. " 1 But the transmundane eternal life influences our 
earthly life : it creates a new will, which strives after holi- 
ness and perfection, as the Father in heaven is perfect ; it 
creates a new feeling of self-reliance : the feeling that we are 
children of God ; it creates a new form of human intercourse : 
the community united in brotherly love ; lastly, it creates 
a new relation to the earth and its goods : the Christian is 
the master of all things, capable of enjoying all innocent 
pleasures, and yet firmly attached to none. Paul often aptly 
describes this paradox in the life of the Christian : " As sor- 
rowful, yet always rejoicing ; as poor, yet making many rich ; 
as having nothing, and yet possessing all things." 2 

13. Many will fail to recognize in the above exposition of 
Christianity and its conception of life, the picture which they 
may have formed of it. Many believe that Christianity and 
Greek humanity are, if not absolutely identical, at least 
closely akin to each other. It is not unusual, even in our day, 
to find Jesus described as an amiable, cheerful, and mild 
moral teacher, who made it the object of his life to remove all 
hatred and enmity from the world, and to establish a king- 
dom of peace and love. He was himself capable of enjoying 
everything beautiful and good, and therefore did not begrudge 
his disciples any pure pleasure which life offered. Hase so 
portrays him in his Life of Christ : Jesus naively enjoyed the 
goods of this world, although he did not burden himself with 
their possession, on account of his higher mission. Like a 
bridegroom he lived among his disciples ; he did not even 
abstain from indulging in a social cup of wine : in short, " never 
was a religious hero less opposed to the pleasures of life." 3 
That he did not take a wife must have been due to accidental 
causes : " let us assume, say, that his affianced died. Or, 
this, too, may be conjectured: that he from whose religion 
the ideal conception of marriage, foreign to antiquity, was 

* John, xii., 25. * 2 Cor., vi., 10. * § 5S. 



§0 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

derived, found no one in his times whose heart was worthy 
of such a union." 1 He speaks of the " true humanitarian 
spirit " which Jesus showed with respect to ascetic rules, and 
finds that the peculiar culture of Jesus consists "in his 
religious perfection, the flower of all purely human striving.' , 2 
Similarly, Keim, in his History of Jesus : 3 No religious re- 
former ever took such loving interest in all the forms of 
earthly life as he did, no one lived so " like a man of the 
world ;" 4 in another place he even speaks of a " comfortable, 
easy-going congeniality " (behagliche stillsitzende G-emuthlich- 
keif) which the character of Jesus encouraged. 6 In the con- 
flict with the Pharisees concerning the Sabbath he comes out 
victorious, " because he modestly and overwhelmingly unfolds 
the banner of humanity.' ' 6 

It is undoubtedly true that the writings of the New Testa- 
ment transmit features of the life of Jesus and sayings from 
his teachings, which may be utilized for such a picture. 
Whether they indicate different stages of development in 
the life of Jesus itself, as Renan, for example, assumes, or 
whether his teachings and the conception we have of him 
have been distorted by tradition, say by Ebionitic inter- 

1 §45. 

2 §29. 

8 3d ed., 1875. [Engl, translation by Ransom and Geldart, 1876.] 

* P. 165. 6 P- 145. 

6 P. 199. David Strauss does not go so far in his Life of Jesus [tr. by George 
Eliot] in misrepresenting the essence of Christianity. But he, too, speaks of the 
" humane love of Jesus," of " the cheerful soul at peace with God, and embracing 
all men as brothers," and calls this " cheerful, vigorous element, this acting from 
the pleasure and joyf ulness of a beautiful soul, the Hellenic element in Jesus." To 
be sure, he also emphasizes the fact that there are essential " defects in the human- 
ity " of Jesus : family, state, acquisition, art, and beautiful enjoyment do not fall 
within its scope. But this one-sidedness, he says, is partly due to the Jewish 
nationality, partly to the conditions of the times ; besides, it can easily be remedied 
by different temporal, political, and educational conditions, and remedied in 
the best way only after we have come to understand the work of Jesus as a 
human achievement, hence as capable and in need of further development (Life 
of Jesus, 4th ed., I. 262, II. 388). In his last work (The Old and the New Faith, 
§ 24, tr. by M. Blind), Strauss, influenced by Schopenhauer, seems to draw the 
lines more sharply between Christianity and the world. 



THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 91 

pretations, as Hase believes, or by the opposite, which would 
be more in line with the natural man's inclinations, — indeed, 
during his lifetime his disciples could not free themselves 
from the notion that he was to set up a worldly kingdom 
invested with all the power and glory of such a kingdom, — 
upon this point I do not venture to express an opinion. I 
share Strauss's view that it is a hopeless undertaking to write 
a true history of the life and development of Jesus, on the 
basis of the sources at our command ; and there also seem 
to me to be insurmountable difficulties in the way of a sys- 
tematic exposition of the teachings contained in his sermons. 
Disconnected sayings and parables are handed down to us, 
which cannot be comprehended into a unified philosophical 
system ; which, of course, does not diminish their value ; 
on the contrary, the Gospels owe their wonderful power to 
the fact that they do not form a theological or philosophical 
system. Systems pass away, concepts are tools with which 
an age apprehends and fashions things; and in a certain 
sense every age must produce its own tools, in order that it 
may manipulate them satisfactorily. The great poems, on 
the other hand, are eternal, like their content, human life 
itself. There is no condition in life, and no mood which will 
not find in the Scriptures, in the Old and New Testaments, 
a story or a saying to express it, from which to draw conso- 
lation in adversity and inspiration in prosperity. Had these 
books merely transmitted to us a philosophical system, they 
would have grown old and perished long ago ; but they por- 
tray human life as it is, with all its joys and sorrows, and 
hence they are imperishable. 

But of one thing there is no doubt m my mind, and that 
is this : The Gospels, as they have come down to us, breathe 
the spirit of world-denial ( Weltverleugnung) rather than that 
of earthly joy. In what moods do men most frequently turn 
to these writings ? In the exultation of victory and rejoicing, 
or in the sorrow of defeat, in the throes of sickness and death ! 



92 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

No one will hesitate for an answer. Hearts bowed down by 
suffering and oppressed with sin, world-weary and life-weary 
hearts, — these have invariably sought and found consola- 
tion and relief in the Gospels. The powerful and victorious, 
the hopeful and prosperous, are more apt to find their feelings 
expressed in Greek philosophy and in the Odes of Horace. 
Nor is there any doubt in my mind that the soul of Jesus, too, 
was attuned, not to happiness and victory, and life of life, but 
to death and world-denial. And would it not have been a 
most remarkable confusion if Christianity had taken as its 
starting-point the Jesus of Hase ? Hase believes that if Jesus 
had been a disciple of the Essenes, they would have cursed 
him as an apostate : " How these gloomy pietists would have 
shaken their pious heads and rolled their devout eyes at this 
cheerful and energetic man." But how strange, then, that 
this man looked upon the Baptist, that powerful figure, so 
unique in his rugged greatness, as his forerunner, that he pro- 
duced a Paul, who made such a sharp distinction between the 
flesh and the spirit, that the apostolic church, leaning as it 
did towards Ebionitism, the entire primitive church, with its 
ethical supernaturalism, followed his banner. Was all that a 
single grand mistake ? It seems strange to me that any one 
should attempt to correct this living tradition by means of the 
scanty fragments of the great living tradition, which have 
been preserved in the Gospels. If the oldest communities, 
which counted among their number the living witnesses of the 
life, teachings, and death of Jesus, did not know what these 
things meant, then it is not probable that we of the nineteenth 
century shall discover it by historical investigations. 

This inability to understand Christianity is evidently due 
to the fact that it has not yet become " historic." If it, to- 
gether with its effects, were a thing of the past, a purely 
historical investigation would not long remain in doubt as 
to its fundamental character. But such is not the case ; we 
are still surrounded, on all sides, if not by primitive Chri* 



THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 98 

tianity itself, at least by its embodied effects. Our very lan- 
guage betrays the influence which Christianity has exercised 
upon it for centuries : no one would be willing to dispense with 
at least the name of a Christian. This explains the tendency 
which every man has to interpret Christianity conformably 
with his ideal of life. It also explains why we discover in 
the writings of the New Testament the very views of life and 
the world which we ourselves entertain, with, at most, a few 
slight changes here and there. For the champion of a con- 
servative state church the fundamental doctrine of Christianity 
consists in subjecting oneself to those in power, in respecting 
the institutions of the state and the church, the family and 
property. Liberal Protestantism, on the other hand, sees in 
Jesus the man who preached freedom, who broke the fetters 
of Jewish orthodoxy, who despised the ascetic ordinances ; 
hence he was evidently an advocate of the principle of free 
research, one of the great heroes of civilization, who delivered 
man from the yoke of superstition and turned him in the 
direction of progress ; in our times he would have been a 
liberal professor of theology, or, according to others, a social 
reformer. 

Est liber hie, in quo quserit sua dogmata quisque; 
Invenit in illo dogmata quisque sua. 

But, you will say, is it not true that Jesus had a low 
opinion of ascetic practices ? Did he not, in contrast with 
the Baptist, absolve his disciples of the duty of following 
them ? Did he not thereby give such offence to the Pharisees 
that they called him a glutton and a wine-bibber? — It is 
true ; although he did not prohibit ascetic practices, but took 
for granted that his disciples would fast, which they actually 
did. But why does he not enforce such practices ? Perhaps, 
because they are a hindrance to the enjoyment of life ? Not 
at all ; but simply because they do not suffice ; he regards them 
as a part of those works which the Pharisees of all ages have 



94 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

offered to God to take the place of true worship: alms and 
prayers and tithes of mint and anise and cumin, instead of 
righteous works of justice and love of neighbor; external 
abstinence in lieu of the sacrifice of one's entire life. Jesus 
did not fail to see how prone the human heart is, even the 
sincere and well-meaning heart, to deceive God and itself 
in this manner, and hence he took it upon himself to break 
his disciples of the habit of prizing such things. He de- 
manded more, he demanded the complete separation of the 
heart from the world and entire devotion to God. The per- 
fect man needs no further preparation; he who is imbued 
with the new spirit no longer needs to practise those little 
abstinences, he has no use for them ; which, of course, does 
not mean that they cannot be of service and of benefit to 
the novice. Paul describes the life of the perfect Christian : 
" It remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though 
they had none ; and those that weep as though they wept not ; 
and they that rejoice as though they rejoiced not ; and they 
that buy as though they possessed not ; and they that use this 
world as not abusing it : for the fashion of this world passeth 
away." 1 Whoever has so thoroughly emancipated himself 
from the world does not stand in need of such preparation. 

Now, that such a state is not adapted to promote what is 
called civilization can hardly be doubted : he whose heart is 
in heaven will not be very apt to make this earthly life rich 
and beautiful and grand, nor will he on that account have 
any censure to fear from Jesus. The Gospels nowhere say : 
Accumulate wealth and save, care for your own and the 
economic welfare of your family. But they do say : " Take 
no thought of your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall 
drink ; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on ; lay not 
up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust 
doth corrupt, and thieves break through and steal." We no- 
where read : Have a care for the development of your natural 

1 1 Cor., vii., 29 ft 



THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 95 

capacities ; train the body by gymnastic exercises, make it 
strong and beautiful ; train the intellect and the senses, so 
that you may appreciate the creations of art and poetry, the 
products of philosophy and science. But we do read : " If 
one of thy members offend thee, pluck it out and cast it 
from thee." We nowhere read : Try to obtain honors, help 
your friends to achieve fame and position ; but we do read : 
" Blessed are ye when men shall revile you ! " We nowhere 
read : Go and take a wife, and rear able citizens for the state ; 
but we do read : " There be eunuchs which have made them- 
selves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake." We no- 
where read : Go and serve the state with thy sword or with 
thy counsel ; but we do read : " My kingdom is not of this 
world." We nowhere read : Go and labor for the happiness 
of the human race ; the word happiness or its equivalent 
does not even occur in the writings of the New Testament. 
But we do read : " The world passeth away and the lusts 
thereof." 

If Jesus really believed that his disciples ought to make 
themselves useful to the world, not by preaching the transi- 
toriness of everything earthly and the eternal kingdom, but 
by taking part in the work which the world itself regards as 
important and great, then, indeed, it must be confessed, 
he left nothing undone to be misunderstood. If, on the other 
hand, it was his purpose to exhort men, by his example and 
his teachings, to overcome the world, then we have the right 
to say : His preaching was as intelligible as it was effective. 
Indeed, no one has hitherto succeeded in wholly obscuring 
his meaning. Contemtus mundi and amor Christi are the 
inscriptions upon the two curtains enshrouding the hidden 
sanctuary in which dwells the community of Christ ; so Amos 
Comenius describes it in his Labyrinth of the World and 
Paradise of the Heart. Contemtus mundi alone is not Chris- 
tianity ; without amor Christi it becomes Schopenhauerian 
pessimism or Nietzschean tyrant-morality ; nor, on the other 



96 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

hand, can there be Christianity without an admixture of con 
temtus mundi. 

But the man who is unable to glean the meaning of Chris- 
tianity either from the sermons of Jesus himself or from the 
interpretations of the apostles, may learn something from 
the way in which it was received by the world. Had Jesus 
been such an amiable preacher of human world-wisdom, his 
contemporaries would most likely not have considered it 
necessary to nail him to a cross : the amiable, proper, and 
charming people, who live and let live, who understand the 
art of combining " religion " with " culture," who incline 
toward " easy-going congeniality " and enjoy " the pleasures 
of a social cup," have never been regarded as dangerous, 
and nailed to crosses. If the Christianity of the early times 
had been what the interpreters of later ages have now and 
then made of it, the deadly enmity which it aroused in the 
world would be absolutely inconceivable. The apostles did 
not consider it so ; they evidently regarded the treatment they 
received as perfectly in order. Jesus had prophesied it : " Ye 
shall be hated of all men for my name's sake." " If ye were 
of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye 
are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, 
therefore the world hateth you." " The time cometh that 
whosoever killeth you will think that he doth God service." 
Nothing was prophesied oftener and more distinctly by Jesus, 
and none of his prophecies was ever more accurately fulfilled. 
— Why this hatred ? Because the Christians despised what 
the world conceived to be the highest good. There was no 
better reason for hating any one; He that did not look 
upon the Emperor and the Empire as the highest good, did 
he not deserve to be hated? He that despised culture 
and science, did he not deserve to be hated? He that de* 
spised wealth and good living and social recognition, who 
withdrew from society and amusements, did he not de- 
serve to be hated ? Was he not really scorning others, if not 



THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 97 

in words, at least by his mode of life ? He that is not for 
me is against me. This is the maxim which has always 
governed the feelings and actions of men. 1 

i There is no better commentary on the Gospels than the life of Savonarola 
as it is described in the admirable work of the Italian Villari [English transla- 
tion by L. Villari]. The life of Jesus in the Gospels is like a series of saintly 
pictures drawn upon a golden background, in which the chief figure stands out 
in bold relief, but without its background ; the life of Savonarola, on the other 
hand, resembles a great historical painting with a multicolored background. 
The fundamental outlines are the same ; the particular features recur with as- 
tonishing regularity : the preaching of the kingdom of God and the vanity of 
the world and its pleasures, its power and glory, its civilization and art, at first 
produces a strange excitement, especially in the hearts of the common people ; 
they applaud the great preacher and miracle-worker. Then the lords of this 
world, spiritual and secular, get together and deliberate how to check the 
scandal which is destroying peace and progress ; they convince themselves that 
it can only be done by removing the disturber. He is brought to trial amid the 
applause of all the educated ones, and is finally executed as a false prophet, 
swindler, and pretended miracle-worker, who cannot save himself, with the 
curses of the fanatical populace ringing in his ears. — Here again, moreover, we 
may find the word of Aristotle corroborated, that poetry is more " philosophical " 
than history. That the Gospels are not historical accounts like those we have of 
the life of Savonarola or Goethe, no one will doubt who is willing to follow a 
critical investigation like the one offered by Strauss. They are historical poems 
born of the faith that the life and death of Jesus are the absolutely important 
facts of history. To this day they have shown a unique and incomparable power 
in expressing and propagating this faith. If we had a " scientific " biography of 
Jesus, one based upon the most thorough research and drawn from the most 
reliable and copious sources, and written in the most admirable manner, like the 
above mentioned life of Savonarola, for example, its influence would, as com- 
pared with that of the Gospels, still be equal to zero. If efficacy ( Wirksamkeit) is 
the standard of reality ( Wirklichkeit), as the German language seems to imply, 
then the truth will remain that the Gospels are the greatest " reality " (das Wirk- 
lichste ) ever made by human hands. — It seems to me this is occasionally forgot- 
ten by the critics of the Gospels as well as by those who are afraid of criticism 
— as though the Gospels could be destroyed by it. " For the letter killeth, but 
the spirit giveth life." 



CHAPTER m 

THE CONVERSION OF THE OLD WORLD TO CHRISTIANITY* 

1. Among all the occurrences recorded by history none is 
more astonishing than the conversion of the old world to 
Christianity. Never was there a spiritual movement which 
seemed so lacking in everything calculated to conquer the 
world, as Christianity. When Jesus died, he left behind a 
handful of followers, not a great fruit, it seemed, of such a 
life-work. And these followers were poor, uneducated people, 
without science, without wealth, without fame, without cour- 
age, except in suffering, without a single passion except a 
strange fanatical enthusiasm for a kingdom in a transmundane 
world. This is the impression which Christianity made upon 
those who witnessed its birth and early growth. Originating 
among the most despised of all nations, the Jews, consisting 
in the worship of a man who had been cast out by this people 
as an idle dreamer and deceiver, and had died on the cross, it 
seemed that, weighed down with the contempt and hatred of 
the cultured, it would, like so many other superstitions of 
the age, soon sink into an inglorious oblivion. 

In a posthumous work of Th. Keim, Rome and Christian- 
ity? may be found references from Graeco-Roman litera- 
ture which describe the feelings "which Christianity aroused 
among its contemporaries : they are contempt and hatred. 
" The Christians," so says the philosopher Celsus (under 

1 [Lecky, History of European Morals, vol. I., chap. III. ; Friedlander, Die 
Sittengeschichte Rom's (translated into French) ; Keim, Rom und das Christen? 
thum,; Baur (see p. 65), Part I. ; Fisher (see p. 65.) — Tk.] 

* Published by H. Ziegler, 1881, 



CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE OLD WORLD 99 

Marcus Aurelius), " purposely and expressly exclude all wise 
and educated men from their meetings, and, like the quacks 
having the poorest wares, turn their attention only to the un- 
cultured rabble. Nay, they do not, as priests usually do, 
appeal to the pure and sinless, but to the unfortunate and 
sinful, to the criminals ; as though God did not accept the sin- 
less, as though he were, like a weak man, influenced by the 
laments of the wicked, and not by the justice of his judgment. 
This, however, the Christians merely do because they cannot 
gain adherents among honest and upright people." a This was 
the opinion of the philosophers. The masses detested them 
as atheists, of whom it was believed that they committed the 
most hideous crimes in their secret gatherings. 2 The states- 
men, who really did not begin to pay any attention to Chris- 
tianity until the second century — the persecutions of the 
first century were outbreaks of temporary moods — regarded 
it as an obnoxious weed, which the interests of the state and 
society demanded should be eradicated. Trajan gave his gov- 
ernors orders to this effect : u The Christians shall not be 
hounded, but if they are accused and convicted, they shall 
suffer capital punishment. But if the offender denies Christi- 
anity and proves it by doing homage to our gods, he shall be 
pardoned for his past offence." 3 This was, in the main, the 
attitude of the government during the second century ; we 
shall have to agree with Keim that a more appropriate method 
of suppressing Christianity could not have been chosen. By 
keeping the mean between exemption from punishment and 
persecution, the state, on the one hand, hindered the introduc- 
tion of the new religion as the officially allowed or recognized 
form of worship, and, on the other, deprived it of that attrac- 
tiveness with which persecution always invests a cause : only 
the senseless obstinacy which expressly refused, when asked, 
to show any respect for the gods of the state and people, 
was punished. For, an age which was in the habit of looking 

1 402. 2 362 ff. * 520. 



100 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

upon worship partly as the duty of the subject, partly as the 
satisfaction of harmless private desires, could not but regard 
such refusal as " mere obstinacy," as Marcus Aurelius con- 
temptuously calls the attitude of the Christians. 1 

And yet the incredible happened. Christianity gradually 
spread until it finally became the ruling religion in the great 
federation of nations of the Roman Empire. How was it 
possible for the old world to desert its religion ? How did it 
come about that the Greeks and the Romans were converted 
to a religion which despised everything that no Greek and no 
Roman could despise without repudiating himself: science 
and philosophy, poetry and art, fatherland and gods ? 

2. Every attempt to understand this process will always 
find itself driven to conclusions which have often been drawn. 
The old world had outlived itself ; the principle of its life 
was dying. The city-state was the form of ancient life, free 
sovereign citizenship was the bearer of the ancient virtues. 
The city-states had been ruined, internally and externally; 
internally, by the splitting-up of the citizens into the two fac- 
tions of the rich and the poor, which antagonized each other 
in bloody conflicts ; externally, by their incorporation in 
the Roman Empire. The entire world was ruled by the 
Roman court. " Have I not," so Seneca lets the Emperor 
say in his work On Mercy? with which he flatteringly greeted 
the youthful Nero upon the latter's accession to the throne, 
" have I not been chosen from all mortals to govern as the 
representative of the gods upon earth ? Am I not judge 
over the life and death of nations ? Do not the fate and 
the position of every individual rest in my hands ? Does not 
Fortune proclaim through my mouth what she is willing to 
bestow upon every one ? Are not our decrees the cause of 
jubilation among nations and cities ? Can any part of the 
empire thrive without my will, without my favor ? These 
many thousand swords which are kept in their scabbards by 

1 Reflections, XI., 3. a fie dementia, I., 2. 



CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE OLD WORLD 101 

my decrees of peace, are they not drawn at my beck and 
command ? Is it not at my behest that nations are exter- 
minated or transplanted, that freedom is given or taken 
away, that kings are sentenced to slavery or crowned, that 
cities are destroyed and built ? " And now when this supra- 
human power, as often happened, became the sport of f reed- 
men and courtesans, what an awful abyss of corruption 
yawned before the Romans and poisoned all nations and 
princes with its foul odors. 

In such an empire there was no more room for the old 
virtues. Among the ancient nations all virtues and excel- 
lences were connected with the state, totally differing from 
the modern virtues in this respect. The four cardinal virtues, 
prudence, courage, justice, temperance, are essentially civic 
virtues. The destruction of the old communities deprived 
them of the soil upon which they flourished and were prac- 
tised. In place of courage and justice, subserviency and the 
arts of flattery, treachery and violence, became the means 
of acquiring wealth, power, and dignity ; in the imperial 
period the goodness of a few emperors could not prevent 
these things, except to a very limited degree and within 
narrow circles. With the ancient manliness (virtus) and 
honorableness, the virtue of temperance passed away. Pomp 
and luxury on the one side, and proletarian wretchedness 
on the other, took the place of beautiful and moderate 
enjoyment. 

Friedlander has given us in his History of the Morals of 
Home 1 an authentic account of the life of the imperial city 
during the first two centuries. If I can trust my own im- 
pressions, no one will lay the book aside without a feeling of 
horror, although it was not written with the intention of 
producing that effect : with so much wealth and power, so 
much splendor and greatness, such a terribly empty and 
desolate life ! The chief purpose of this vast empire seems to 

1 Sittengeschichle Rom's. 



102 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

have been to feed and amuse the populace of the metropolis. 
Rome was not an industrial city, she really had no commerce 
and manufacture, but only an enormous import : from all parts 
of the world commodities were brought thither for consump- 
tion. The distribution of these commodities by shopkeepers 
constituted one of the most desired sources of revenue of the 
third estate. The public administration seems to have been 
essentially an institution for the exploitation of the provinces 
by the relatives of the families who belonged to good society, 
the senatorial and equestrian classes. The population of the 
city was divided into two halves : the ruling families, who 
drained the provinces, and the masses, who in turn lived as 
parasites upon these vampires. " All the people whom you see 
in this city," writes Petronius, " are divided into two parties : 
they are either angling for something or being angled ; " or, 
using another figure : " You will behold a city that resembles 
a field during a pestilence, which contains nothing but corpses, 
and ravens which are devouring them." 1 The ravens were 
the swarms of clients, beggars, legacy-hunters, singers, actors, 
artists, astrologers, parasites of all kinds ; the corpses upon 
which they fed were the owners of large estates, the large 
capitalists, who squandered at Rome what their ancestors 
had made by administering the provinces, or what they 
had themselves in turn acquired through gifts, legacy -hunt- 
ing, etc. Every noble house supported, besides its army of 
slaves, an army of clients, whose sole function consisted 
in proving by their mere presence the noble rank of the man 
in whose atrium they appeared early in the morning, and 
whom they accompanied on his walks. They were rewarded 
for their services by receiving board or alimony and occasional 
presents *, niggardly enough, of course, in the opinion of those 
who received them. 

In addition to this, the masses of the metropolitan popula 
tion were directly fed by the state, even during the latter 

i Friedlander, L, 371. 



CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE OLD WORLD 103 

days of the Republic. According to Uhlhorn, 1 C. Gracchus 
was the first to have a law enacted, which provided for the 
sale of wheat to Roman citizens by the state at cost price ; 
soon after it was distributed gratis. Caesar is said to have 
found as many as 320,000 receivers of grain in the city, and 
to have reduced the number to 150,000. Under Augustus 
it again rose to about 200,000 (for about one and one half 
millions of inhabitants). They also received gifts of oil, salt, 
meat, and money ; on all extraordinary occasions, accessions to 
the throne, anniversaries, testaments, there was always some- 
thing left over for " the people ; " Uhlhorn estimates the 
avei'age amount of annual contributions in money at about 
six million marks. 

The second great object of concern of the governing classes 
was to amuse the masses. To this end theatres, games in 
the circus and amphitheatre, baths, etc., were instituted. 
In these matters, too, the beginning had already been made 
under the Republic ; the competition for the good will of the 
voters constantly increased the expenditures for the games 
which the successful candidates had to arrange. During the 
Empire, races, gladiatorial contests, and plays, especially the 
first, took the place of public business. " It is to your 
advantage, Caesar, that the people occupy themselves with 
us," a pantomime once called out to Augustus. 2 The splendor 
and grandeur as well as the number of the games constantly 
increased under the succeeding emperors. Under Augustus 
they occupied sixty-six days according to the festival-calen- 
dar, under Tiberius the number increased to eighty-seven days, 
not counting the frequent gladiatorial contests ; in the middle 
of the fourth century it was one hundred and seventy-five 
days. In addition there were extraordinary games : at the 
dedication of the Flavian amphitheatre Titus gave a festival 
lasting one hundred days ; in commemoration of the second 

1 Geschichte der christlichen Liebesthatigkeit in der alten Kirche. pp. 10 ff. 

2 Friedlauder, II., 257. 



104 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

Dacian victory Trajan gave a festival lasting one hundred 
and twenty-three days. All the greater performances be- 
gan at daybreak and lasted till sunset. The number of 
seats in the three theatres together was 49,590, in the 
amphitheatre 87,000, in the circus, under Caesar, 150,000, 
under Vespasian, 250,000, in the fourth century, 385,000. 
The emperor frequently also provided the spectators with re- 
freshments. " At a festival, which Domitian gave in the 
year 88, the number of young, beautiful, and richly attired 
imperial servants, who waited upon the people in the amphi- 
theatre was, according to Statius's account, as great as the 
number of spectators. Some brought costly viands in baskets 
and white table-cloths, others old wines. Children and 
women, the populace, the nobles, and the senate, everybody 
feasted as at a table ; the Emperor himself condescended to 
take part in the meal, and the poorest man felt happy in the 
knowledge that he was his guest." 1 

The festival was held in the amphitheatre ; the centre 
around which the large company gathered was the arena, the 
great slaughter-house in which criminals, slaves, and finally, 
above all, prisoners of war from all nations, after first having 
been trained for the purpose in the gladiatorial schools, killed 
each other for the delectation of the guests of the emperor. 
Under Augustus, a total of 10,000 men fought in the eight 
combats which he arranged ; in the festival lasting four 
mouths, which Trajan gave after the conquest of Dacia, as 
many as 10,000 men. Thus the captives of war of all nations 
had the honor of fighting once more before the lord of the 
earth and of dying under his very eyes. With the blood of 
all the nations was mingled in the arena the blood of all the 
animal species of the earth. In the games of Pompey 
were seen 17 elephants, 500 to 600 lions, and 410 other 
African beasts. In the 26 games alone, instituted by 
Augustus, about 3,500 African animals were hunted and 

* Friedlander, II., 277. 



CHRISTIANIZATIOJST OF THE OLD WORLD 105 

slaughtered ; at the dedication of the Flavian amphitheatre- 
under Titus, about 9,000 tame and wild animals. New 
and more refined settings were invented : nocturnal combats 
were added, sea-fights alternated with land-battles, the 
arena being flooded with water. And around this scene of 
blood and horror were gathered the emperor and the senators, 
the people and nobility, men and women, eating and drinking, 
laughing and courting, shouting and roaring: a scene of 
horror, a city of horror, the like of which has never been 
witnessed upon this earth. The history of the morality of 
Rome is the commentary to the Apocalypse. 

The provinces followed the example of the capital, the 
governors the example of the emperor. In all the cities we 
find the same division of society into vampires and parasites. 
By distributing offices and honors, the municipalities them- 
selves sponged upon the wealth of the few ; in addition to this, 
a countless train of clients fastened itself upon the rich house- 
holds. In all the cities we find gladiatorial contests and 
animal-hunts : " There was not a single city from Jerusalem 
to Seville, from England to Northern Africa, in whose arena 
numerous victims were not slaughtered year after year." 
The Greek populace alone retained a trace of its former 
refinement and culture, and only gradually and with difficulty 
found pleasure in these games ; while the cultured classes in 
Greece held themselves entirely aloof from them." 1 Nor is it 
likely that they took greater pleasure in the theatrical perform- 
ances with which the lords of the world were entertained, 
the Atellanae and mimes, the pantomimes and ballets. " By 
the side of the violent excitement furnished by the circus and 
the arena, the stage could not retain its attraction for the 
masses except by offering brutal enjoyments and tickling the 
senses : and so, instead of counteracting the pernicious in- 
fluence of these other spectacles, it contributed not the least 
part in corrupting and brutalizing Rome." 2 What an awful 

* Friedlander, II., 380 ff. * II., 391. 



106 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

state of debauchery resulted from all this is shown with 
ohotographic exactness in a description which we have of the 
life of a little Italian town, dating from the time of Nero : 
The Feast of Trimalchio by Petronius. 1 The coarseness of 
taste and feeling displayed by the host and the guests at the 
table of the freedman of Cumas, who had grown rich by com- 
mercial speculations, most likely surpasses anything that has 
ever been witnessed in the circles of the parvenu and the 
parasite. 

3. It is not strange that a feeling of profound discontent 
accompanied such a life. Pleasure, according to the well- 
known Aristotelian dictum, follows efficient action ; a life of 
idleness and amusement ends in pain and nausea. 

Philosophy is a mirror of the feelings of an age. It is not 
those addicted to the life we have described who philosophize 
— I mean seriously philosophize, for, of course, there is a 
" philosopher " among the parasites of every noble house- 
hold — but those who endeavor to fly from it and yet cannot 
emancipate themselves from their times. They feel the utter 
nothingness and emptiness of their existence ; their philoso- 
phy is a philosophy of redemption. The vanity of all things 
which everybody is running after, and the possibility of being 
delivered by philosophy, that is the fundamental theme of 
the reflections of Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius : Seek 
the seclusion of your own soul, do not desire what is not in 
your power, let the world go its way, and you will be at 
peace. " Seek not that the things which happen should happen 
as you wish ; but wish the things which happen to be as they 
are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life." " When a 
raven has croaked inauspiciously, let not the appearance 
hurry you away with it ; but straightway make a distinction 
in your mind and say, None of these things is signified to 
me but to my poor body, or to my small property, or to my 
reputation, or to my children, or to my wife ; but to me all 

1 [English translation by H. T. Peck, New York, 1898.] 



CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE OLD WORLD 107 

significations are auspicious if I choose. For whatever of 
these things results, it is in my power to derive benefit from 
it." " Remember that in life you ought to behave as at a 
banquet. Suppose that something is carried around and is 
opposite to you. Stretch out your hand and take a portion 
with decency. Suppose that it passes by you. Do not detain 
it. Suppose that it is not yet come to you. Do not send 
your desire forward to it, but wait till it is opposite to you. 
Do so with respect to children, so with respect to a wife, so 
with respect to magisterial offices, so with respect to wealth, 
and you will be some time a worthy partner of the banquets 
of the gods. But if you take none of the things which are 
set before you, and even despise them, then you will be not 
only a fellow banqueter with the gods, but also a partner with 
them in power. For by acting thus Diogenes and Heracleitus 
and those like them were deservedly divine, and were so 
called." " Let death and exile and every other thing which 
appears dreadful be daily before your eyes ; but most of all 
death, and you will never think of anything mean nor will 
you think of anything extravagantly." So says Epictetus. 1 
To suffer and renounce : that is the final aim of wisdom. 

Still more strongly does the feeling of melancholy though 
calm resignation appear in the Reflections 2 of Marcus Aure- 
lius. " Of human life the time is a point, and the substance 
is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the composition of 
the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a whirl, 
and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judg- 
ment. And, to say all in a word, everything which belongs 
to the body is a stream, and what belongs to the soul is a 
dream and vapor, and life is a warfare, and a stranger's so- 
journ, and after-fame is oblivion. What, then, is that which 
is able to conduct a man ? One thing and only one, philoso- 
phy. But this consists in keeping the daemon within a man 

1 [See the Encheiridion or Manual, 8, 18, 15, 21, Eng. translation by Long.] 
a [Eng. translation by Long.] 



108 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleas- 
ures, doing nothing without a purpose, nor yet falsely and 
with hypocrisy, not feeling the need of another man's doing 
or not doing anything ; and besides, accepting all that hap- 
pens, and all that is allotted, as coming from thence, where- 
ever it is, from whence he himself came ; and, finally, waiting 
for death with a cheerful mind, as being nothing else than 
a dissolution of the elements of which every living being is 
compounded." l " Constantly consider how all things as they 
now are, in time past also were ; and consider that they 
will be the same again. And place before thine eyes entire 
dramas and stages of the same form, whatever thou hast 
learned from thy experience or from older history ; for ex- 
ample, the whole court of Hadrianus, and the whole court 
of Antoninus, and the whole court of Philippus, Alexander, 
Croesus ; for all those were such dramas as we now see, only 
with different actors." 2 " The idle business of show, plays on 
the stage, flocks of sheep, herds, exercises with spears, a 
bone cast to little dogs, a bit of bread into fish-ponds, 
laborings of ants and burden-carryings, runnings-about of 
frightened little mice, puppets pulled by strings. ... It is 
thy duty then in the midst of such things to show good 
humor and not a proud air ; to understand, however, that every 
man is worth just so much as the things are worth about 
which he busies himself." 3 "What, then, is that about 
which we ought to employ our serious pains ? This one 
thing : thoughts just, and acts social, and words which never 
lie, and a disposition which gladly accepts all that happens, 
as necessary, as usual, as flowing from a principle and source 
of the same kind." 4 " Cast away opinion, thou art saved. 
What then hinders thee from casting it away ? " 5 " Con- 
sider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in thy power. 
Take away, then, when thou choosest, thy opinion, and, like 

1 II., 17. 8 VII., 3. « XII., 86. 

« X., 27. * IV., 33. 



CHRISTIANIZATTON OF THE OLD WORLD 109 

a mariner who has doubled the promontory, thou wilt find 
calm, everything stable, and a waveless bay." 1 

" Seldom, indeed," says Lecky, 2 " has such active and un- 
relaxing virtue been united with so little enthusiasm, and 
been cheered by so little illusion of success." 

We meet the same features in the philosophy of this period. 
The movements which Zeller embraces under the title : Pre- 
cursors of Neo-Platonism, in the last volume of his History of 
Greek Philosophy, the Neo-Pythagoreans, the later Cynics, 
the Essenes, the Judaeo-Greek philosophy of Philo, all of 
them have their origin in the same mood of life and show the 
same traits ; they preach submission and resignation, absten 
tion from the world, supported by asceticism, a return to the 
suprasensuous world, to which the soul really belongs. The 
life in the body they regard as a life in a prison-house, 
death as the emancipation of the just. This last offshoot of 
the old trunk of philosophy, Neo-Platonism, has shown a re- 
markable power in utilizing the results of all previous phil- 
osophical investigations, and has constructed a system of the 
universe based upon this mood. The goal of the philosophy 
of Plotinus is a purely supranaturalistic ethics. By freeing 
itself from the sensuous impulses and sensuous knowledge, 
the soul is enabled wholly to give up its temporal-personal 
self-consciousness, and to raise itself into communion with 
the divine by means of ecstasy. Thus it returns to its origin 
and fulfills its highest mission. It is said that Plotinus re- 
fused to allow a painting to be made of himself, because he 
was ashamed of his body. — Thus philosophy came to be 
exactly what Socrates once called it: the study of death 
(fjLekerr) Oavdrov). 

It would, of course, be a mistake to suppose that this philo- 
sophical movement reflected the general conception of the 
times. In the section of his work which deals with the rela- 
tion of philosophy to the age, Friedlander has brought to- 

1 XII., 22. 2 History of European Morals, I, 253. 



110 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

gether a mass of evidence to show that philosophy was not 
without its enemies and despisers. Educated and uneducated 
people derided the philosophers as ridiculous fools, who with 
their breadless art acquired neither advancement nor reputa- 
tion, neither money nor favor ; they at the same time hated 
them as men who by their words and their mode of life dis- 
dained and censured their fellows and their aspirations. By 
many the occupation with philosophy was regarded as at 
least improper for the statesman ; at times it was even con- 
sidered dangerous to the state ; during the first century the 
philosophers were twice driven from Rome. The relation 
of a philosophy to its age by no means consists in expressing 
that which its age possesses, but rather in expressing what 
it lacks; it shows what the most reflective and the most 
sensitive among those living at the time desire and strive 
after ; their ideal contains the features of the present, but only 
as a negative picture. But in so far as all historical progress 
has its origin in the feeling of want or discomfort, we may 
also say : The philosophers are diviners of the future ; we can 
learn from them not what is and what is esteemed, but what 
is to come. In this sense we may regard the philosophy 
of the Empire as a sign that a radical change is about to take 
place in the inner life of the ancient peoples ; their deepest 
longing is no longer for the development and perfection of 
the natural life ; exhausted by the pleasures and sufferings of 
this world, they are beginning to crave with secret yearnings 
for deliverance. 

4. By offering them deliverance and, besides, an eternal 
life in transmundane, suprasensuous glory, Christianity satis- 
fied the most secret and deepest yearnings of the age. That 
which the philosophers brought particularly to the educated 
and high-born, was promised by Christianity to the poor and 
wretched, the weary and heavy-laden : deliverance from the 
bondage of earthly fear and desire, in which the soul is held by 
the world and outward show. The former promised deliver- 



CHRTSTIANIZATION OF THE OLD WORLD 111 

ance as the fruit of knowledge, the latter as the effect of 
grace ; and in so far the disposition of the philosopher is 
radically different from that of the Christian, the old pride 
of conscious virtue or self-righteousness still clings to the 
former. But they almost entirely agree in their judgment of 
life and man. 

Christianity was not the only religion from the Orient 
which gained adherents at this time. The Egyptian, Syrian, 
and Persian gods and forms of worship also made devout 
and grateful converts in the Roman Empire ; likewise Juda- 
ism, the old and the new, as which Christianity was first 
regarded. Friedlander 1 accounts for the reception of the 
foreign cults by the thorough mixture of the nations ; poly- 
theism, he finds, does not really exclude the gods of the newly 
incorporated peoples, but leaves to them their special spheres 
of action ; the Romans in foreign lands unhesitatingly ap- 
pealed to the native gods. The mixture of nations was un- 
doubtedly the cause of the mixture of religions; but why did 
these Oriental cults, the worship of the Syrian Baal and 
Astarte, the Egyptian Isis and Osiris, the Persian Mithras, 
prove so attractive to the people of the Empire ? For, as 
J. Burckhardt properly insists in his beautiful work on the 
Age of Constantine the Great 2 : " The later Romans in their 
truly universal superstition conformed to the local worship in 
Gaul as well as everywhere else ; but no Gallic god was trans- 
ferred to Italy or Greece ; " whereas the Oriental cults really 
took root in Greece and Rome. The reason can surely be 
found only in what Burckhardt finds it : owing to their inner 
characteristics the Oriental religions met a need of the Roman 
world which was no longer satisfied by the old native religion. 
Now, these cults are peculiar, in that the doctrine of a life 
after death is essential to them all. After doing severe 
penance and mortifying himself, the believer is promised ex- 
piation and purification, in virtue of which he will escape 
1 III.. 4. 2 Section V. 



112 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

the punishments awaiting the impenitent offender in the 
hereafter. Human sacrifices and self-mutilation are customary 
in many of these cults. The thought of a life after death 
was rather foreign to the classical age : this earthly life was 
the true life, the life after death a shadow of the present life. 
The only concern which men felt for the hereafter was to 
preserve a good reputation among the living. 1 During the 
empire a change gradually took place ; the hereafter assumed 
greater and greater importance at the expense of this world. 
And now the old gods would no longer suffice. Not only to 
the men of the classic age, but to their gods also, the here- 
after was an unfamiliar thought ; they were the gods of the 
living, not of the dead ; they were the givers and preservers 
of earthly gifts ; health and beauty, victory and wealth, they 
bestowed upon their favorites, and were honored with cheerful 
festivals in return. With the dead they had nothing to do. 
The age showed its solicitude for the future life by seeking 
new gods and forms of worship, and found them in the old 
religions of the East. 

5. The Christian religion gained the victory over her 
rivals. What made her victorious ? We are surely justi- 
fied in believing : her inner worth. Perhaps it was, first of 
all, the sensuous-suprasensuous conviction of the immediate 
return of the Lord to judge the earth and to establish the 
kingdom of glory, which gave the members of the church 
the strength to despise the world and imbued their preach- 
ing of the kingdom with such overpowering force. More- 
over, the esprit de corps was for this very reason much 
stronger among the professors of- Christianity than among 
the other religious communities; they looked upon them- 
selves, not without a feeling of pride, as a community of 
saints chosen from the world, as the members of the kingdom 
of glory, whose sojourn here in the flesh was a mere accident. 
This separation from the world was encouraged by the 

1 Friedlander, HI., 5. 



CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE OLD WORLD 113 

jealous exclusiveness of their worship, a heritage of Jewish 
monotheism, which branded all adoration of other gods as 
of idolatry. The power of a religion to gain adherents is in 
inverse proportion to its tendency to mix with others. Then, 
again, there was more of the self-sacrificing devotion of the 
founder in the Christian communities than among the fol- 
lowers of the other cults, although all of them demanded 
sacrifices, and none was without its martyrs. But none of 
them had such a host of martyrs as Christianity. It is a 
wonderful fact, one that does honor to human nature, that 
no sermon makes a deeper impression upon it than that 
preached from a cross. Finally, the Christian belief also 
satisfied the reason in a certain sense ; the rational mono- 
theism of the new religion, which worshipped God as a 
spirit, was more acceptable than the myths of the old popular 
religions, which were no longer believed, or than many of 
the absurd superstitions of the East. 

6. Perhaps the conversion of the Greeks and Romans to 
Christianity also admits of a further explanation. We may 
regard the conversion of a people to a religion of redemption 
as the final stage in the development of its entire spiritual 
life. I venture merely to suggest this view, for a knowl- 
edge of the laws of the evolution of a popular life, similar 
to that which we have of the development of an individual 
life, is of course utterly out of the question. Let us say, then, 
that the religion of redemption is the product of a nation's 
senility: it produces mythology and the tales of heroes in 
its youth, philosophy and science in its manhood, a philo- 
sophy of consolation and a religion of redemption in its old 
age. We might compare the stages of development in the 
world of ideas with parallel stages of development in the 
practical world: youth yearns for action in the chase and 
war ; manhood turns to work and acquisition, to commerce 
and industry ; old age lays aside its tasks, and feeds on the 
products of its former achievements ; it yearns for rest, and 

S 



114 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

withdraws from the present, it lives in the memory of the 
past and in the thought of the hereafter. The new religion, 
therefore, offers itself as a substitute for poetry and science, 
for work and conflict, hopefully transfiguring the evening 
of life as with a soft twilight. 

The same development of the great Eastern branch of the 
Aryan stock also seems to favor such a view of the conver- 
sion of the old nations to Christianity. The Hindoos, too, 
had once started out, under the protection of kindred martial 
gods, upon a career of conquest and victory, and had battled 
for their habitations on the banks of the Indus and the 
Ganges. They, too, had reached a high stage of mental and 
economic evolution. And among them also, at last, the 
desire for civilization changed into religiosity. Brahmanism, 
and still more Buddhism, both of them products of immanent 
development, are to the Orientals what Christianity was in 
the Graeco-Roman world. The two conceptions of life show 
such an astonishing similarity in their details, that the 
belief in the derivation of Christianity from Indian sources 
constantly forces itself upon us. The commands of the 
Dhammapadam, a collection of wise Buddhistic sayings, 1 
often exactly agree, in meaning and in language, with the 
collection of sayings of the so-called Sermon on the Mount, 
To exterminate the desires, to suffer wrong without anger 
and revenge, to be pure in heart and peaceful in disposition : 
these are the commands which are given to the believers in 
the former case as well as in the latter. The forms of life, 



1 For a German translation see W. Weber!s Hindoo Studies (Indische Studien), 
I., 29-86. The able work of H. Oldenberg, Buddha, his Life, his Doctrine, his 
Order (Buddha, sein Leben, seine Lehre, seine Gemeinde) [English translation, 
London, 1882] (2 ed., 1890) gives the historical basis for the interpretation and 
understanding of these sayings. In the third volume of Duncker's History oj 
Antiquity we have an attempt to trace the development of the Hindoo popular 
spirit, in which the contrast between a stage of civilization and a religious stage 
of development is very marked. [See the excellent little work of Paul Carus, 
The Gospel of Buddha and his Table of Reference, on pp. 231-241 ; also the 
bibliography given by him on pages 241-242. — Tk.J 



CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE OLD WORLD 115 

too, in which these demands are sought to be realized show 
the most remarkable similarity ; here as well as there we 
find monasteries and monks, with the three vows of poverty, 
chastity, and humility or obedience. 

There are, of course, also radical differences between Budd- 
hism and Christianity, differences conditioned by the lives of 
the two founders. In Buddha, the Enlightened One, there 
is no passion, we might almost say, no personal will; a 
gentle teacher, he travels from place to place, communicating 
the truth discovered by him that life is suffering, and that 
the way to salvation passes through the knowledge of the 
essence of existence. The life of Jesus is a struggle with 
the world and with evil, which confronts him in personal 
form in Satan. Buddha's death is the quiet extinction of 
a flame, the death of Jesus is the victorious death of a 
hero. The words of Jesus are flames which arouse passions, 
the preaching of Buddha is monotonous repetition ; we might 
almost say, it has a hypnotizing effect. Schopenhauer's 
claim that Christianity is in every respect inferior to Budd- 
hism, can be explained only by his a priori aversion to 
Christianity, or rather to the church and theology ; for other- 
wise he could not have failed to see how much greater is the 
value of Christianity, considered from the purely human and 
poetical standpoint, than that of Buddhism. The more 
highly developed the will-to-live is in the Occident, the 
greater is at least the dramatic interest in its conversion. 
But in so far as the above-mentioned differences are differ- 
ent expressions of the original or acquired character of 
the nations, we may say : Christianity and Buddhism are 
homologous processes of development. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE MIDDLE AGES AND THEIR CONCEPTION OF LIFE » 

1. The Middle Ages seem, at first sight, to have been abso- 
lutely ruled by the Christian conception of life. The church 
represents the framework in which their entire spiritual life 
was embraced. The church doctrine governed knowledge ; the 
vita religiosa, the monastic life, which rests upon the principle 
of world-estrangement and self-denial, was unreservedly ac- 
cepted as the ideal of conduct. Indeed, poverty, chastity, 
and obedience, the three monastic vows, meant nothing but 
the extermination of the three strongest impulses of the 
natural man : the impulses which aim at possession, family, 
reputation and power. In reality, the entire clergy were 
amenable to the rules of the vita religiosa; their mission 
consisted in exemplifying to the people the Christian life ; 
but the church never wholly succeeded in imposing monachism 
upon the clergy living outside of the monasteries; celibacy 
alone was gradually enforced. 

Nevertheless, it would be an error to suppose that mediaeval 
life was really the same in character as the life of the old 
Christian communities in the Graeco-Roman world. If there 
is any truth whatever in the view suggested above, concerning 
the nature of the religion of redemption, this cannot have been 
the case. The Middle Ages do not represent the senility of 
the Germanic nations, but, if we may be allowed to continue 
our comparison of a collective life with an individual life, 
their school-days ; they went to school to antiquity, learning 

1 fSee references in notes od pp. 35 and 65. — Tk.] 



THE MEDIAEVAL CONCEPTION 117 

language and science, philosophy and religion, useful and 
beautiful arts. Now, these youthful nations could no more 
be converted, in the real sense of the term, than a schoolboy 
can be converted. He alone can be converted who has lived, 
and now discovers that life does not keep what it seemed to 
promise. The old nations were converted, they made this 
discovery at the end of a long and brilliant career of civili- 
zation; after having failed to find happiness by satisfying 
their desires, they now sought peace through deliverance 
from desire. When the Germans became Christians, they 
had hardly entered upon the path of civilization ; they could 
not receive the baptism with the same feelings as the 
ancients. 

Of this the history of their Christianization does not leave us 
in doubt. In the old world the conversion to Christianity was 
absolutely spontaneous and from within. Christianity had 
come to the ancients, not with the force of arms, like Islam 
later on, nor with superior culture and science ; it possessed 
none of these things, nay, the lack of them constituted one of 
its essential traits. It triumphed not by the methods of pol- 
itics, but contrary to the will of the political powers. To be 
sure, after its establishment, after it became a power, this state 
of affairs soon changed ; the politicians, who make everything 
subserve their ends, also utilized Christianity, the state itself 
became Christian, or Christianity was organized into a state, 
and the last remains of paganism were finally eradicated by 
the government. All this, of course, could not fail to in- 
fluence the inner essence of Christianity; ever since the 
existence of Christian emperors, which Tertullian had de- 
clared to be a contradiction in terms, 1 the church could no 
longer assume the harsh opposition to the " world " which 
the primitive communities assumed; a kind of compromise 
was made between Christianity and the world : it assimilated 
so much of the world as was needed, not to overcome but to 

1 Apol, c. 21. 



118 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

rule the world. In this way the church developed into a new 
world-power during the latter days of antiquity, not, however, 
without having first created a kind of refuge in the mon- 
asteries for an unworldly or extra- worldly Christianity ; and 
the high estimate which the church places upon the monastic 
life shows that she is still conscious of the true relation of 
Christianity to the world. 

The conversion of the Germanic peoples was a process 
entirely different from the original conversion of the old 
nations to Christianity ; they were, we might say, not really 
converted to Christianity, but to the church. Politics and 
coercion always played a part in the reception of baptism, 
and often cast the deciding vote. The Germanic tribes, from 
whom the German people sprang, were all of them com- 
pelled by the force of arms to join Christianity or rather the 
political-ecclesiastical system of the Frankish Empire. The 
history of the wars and administration of Charlemagne tells 
bloody tales of the " conversion " of the Saxons. He that 
refuses baptism, so it is decreed in the capitulare of Pader- 
born (T85), or wantonly eats meat during Lent, or burns a 
corpse after the custom of the heathens, shall die. Whoever 
cannot recite the Lord's prayer or the creed, so a later 
capitulare decrees, shall be punished with blows or by fast- 
ing, whether it be a man or a woman. 

2. Just as the conversion of the Germans was different 
from that of the ancients, so their conceptions and mode of 
life differed from those of primitive Christianity. The Middle 
Ages were not tired of the world and sated with life, but full 
of energy and the desire to achieve great deeds. Individuals 
were not wanting in whom the true Christian mood asserted 
itself ; in many a mediaeval church hymn the feeling of world- 
weariness and the yearning for deliverance from this misery 
and for the heavenly fatherland is pathetically expressed. 
But that was not the prevailing mood. By the side of the 
church poetry flourished the popular epic or heroic poem; 



THE MEDLEVAL CONCEPTION 119 

coming nearer to the hearts of the people, it was transmitted 
by word of mouth throughout the entire Middle Ages. It is 
not at all Christian in character. The virtue most admired 
is not resignation and patience, but ferocious courage ; the 
warlike hero is the ideal of the Nibelungenlied no less than 
of the Iliad. To love your enemies and to suffer wrong was 
as foreign to the German warriors as to the heroes in Homer. 
The true man was a strong and true friend to his friends, and 
an awful enemy to his enemies. The old Saxon poem of the 
life of Jesus (the Heliand) makes Christ a mighty lord and 
the disciples his retainers ; the transformation shows how 
impossible it was for the Saxons to imagine the real Jesus 
and his followers. The lyric poetry is as little Christian in 
character as the epic. It sings of the pleasures and sorrows 
of love, the joys of spring and the love of the world. 

Such poetry springs directly from the hearts of the people. 
There is no doubt that it is a true mirror of their real life. 
Measured by the command of the Gospels to despise the 
world and its pleasures, the life of the Germanic nations 
during the Middle Ages was not a Christian life. The great 
business of the men was war ; martial games and the chase 
occupied the leisure of the nobles. The pleasures of the table 
and society were also prized, and the relations of the sexes 
were made the subject of an art and a study, all of which is 
elaborately set forth in Weinhold's Buck fiber die deutschen 
Frauen im Mittelalter. 

3. Nor did the actual life of the clergy, as has frequently 
been pointed out, always wholly conform to its ascetic ideal. 
The Pope, who, in remembrance of the command of Christ, 
called himself the servant of the servants of God, was in 
reality the lord of the world ; the bishops were princes and 
rulers, many among them caring more for their lands and 
people, for power and wealth, than for the salvation of souls. 
The cloisters, in which the spirit of unworldliness ( Weltflucht, 
worW-flight) and asceticism was supposed to thrive, were 



120 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

centres of civilization, and occasionally also the scenes of 
luxurious and unholy enjoyment. The Benedictines and 
Cistercians carried handicrafts and arts, horticulture and agri- 
culture, wherever they went. Even the treasures of heathen 
science and literature sought refuge in the monasteries, and 
were preserved by them for posterity, a service for which they 
have often been extolled. The praise is well deserved, but it 
is strange, nevertheless, that the brotherhoods of Christian 
asceticism should have sought and found praise not only for 
transcribing the verses of Ovid and Horace, the writings of 
Aristotle and Lucretius, but also for studying, explaining, 
imitating, and so constantly keeping them alive. And no 
less strange seem to us, looked at from this point of view, 
those military orders the members of which, as the soMiers 
of Christ, wore the sword and the cross, the coat of mail 
and the cassock, and inflicted as well as bound up wounds 
in his service. 

The intellectual life of the Middle Ages, which was directly 
dominated by the church, also differed from that of primitive 
Christianity. A strong, youthful craving for knowledge was 
unmistakable ; the age still distrusted its own powers, and 
drew upon others for its science, but it took it wherever it 
found it ; from the books of the heathens, Jews, and Saracens, 
the scholars of the mediaeval universities derived their knowl- 
edge of things. Scholastic theology itself is a first modest 
attempt to rationalize the sacred teachings. The saying of 
Anselm : " I believe in order that I may understand," is char- 
acteristic of mediaeval theology; the latter does not aim to 
create a new truth, — we have the -truth ; but it desires to ap- 
propriate, and, as it were, to master by the natural reason the 
truth which was originally accepted on faith. That was the 
high goal of the intellectual strivings of the Middle Ages — a 
goal, however, which was found to be more and more unattain- 
able as the work progressed. We cannot say that this aim was 
in harmony with the spirit of primitive Christianity ; Paul, at 



THE MEDLEVAL CONCEPTION 121 

least, in whom the " foolish preaching of the cross" was first 
confronted with Greek wisdom, does not dream of a com- 
promise between the two, or of rendering the truth of salva- 
tion intelligible to the natural reason ; Tertullian with his / 
believe because it is absurd, evidently comes nearer to his way 
of looking at things than Anselm. The desire to comprehend 
the faith is, in a certain sense, the first beginning of the 
desire to be emancipated from it, to rise above it. So Luther 
felt about the matter ; he hated scholastic theology and 
philosophy, because they mingled with the Christian faith 
the heathen wisdom of Aristotle ; he desired to restore the 
former in its purity. 

Hence mediaeval Christianity was not the same as primitive 
Christianity. Not only were the Germans Christianized, but 
Christianity was also Germanized; it appropriated the nat- 
ural desire for civilization of the youthful nations, and was 
thoroughly imbued with their spirit. Moreover, it had, as has 
already been pointed out, gradually assumed a more positive 
relation to the world and its aims, even during antiquity, 
and was thus prepared for the task of bringing to the new 
nations the elements of the old civilization along with the 
new faith. 

4. What shall we say of this mixture of Christianity and 
the world ? The sects which separated from the triumphant 
church have always regarded it as a corruption of Chris- 
tianity ; they were unable to recognize in a state church the 
community of saints who had gathered around the word 
of the cross in the primitive times. The peculiar essence 
and strength of Christianity seemed to them to have been 
lost when the church divided with the state the power over the 
world, either ruling it, as the Catholic church always aimed 
to do, or being ruled by it, as in the case of Protestantism. 

From the standpoint of primitive Christianity it would be 
hard to contradict this view. Christianity was originally a 
battle with the world. A Christianity without battle, a 



122 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

Christianity recognized by the world, approved and author* 
ized by the state, is no longer the same thing; or if ail men 
had become Christians, there would no longer be any world 
or state ; the times would be fulfilled, history closed. — It is 
also certain that a type of character has been produced by 
the mixture of Christian forms and modes of speech with 
worldly manners, which is one of the most repulsive deform- 
ities ever suffered by the nature of man ; it is called Pfaffen- 
turn : haughtiness and greed for power assuming the form 
of Christian humility ; harshness and presumption, disguised 
as love and care for the soul of the brother. The ancient 
world was unfamiliar with this type, but it is as old as the 
church, and is found, moreover, not only among the servants 
of the church, but also among the servants of the state and 
science, indeed among all who have spiritual or worldly 
power. If we look upon the priests as the representatives of 
the church, we can hardly regard the church as anything but a 
great degeneration. 1 

1 As an attempt to write a history of non-ecclesiastical Christianity, that is, the 
true evangelical Christianity, a work by L. Keller, The Reformation and the Older 
Reform-Parties (Die Reformation und die dlteren Reformparteien) , 1885, is of interest. 
That the author has succeeded in proving an uninterrupted, historical connection 
in the " evangelical communities " from the time when Christianity became a 
state religion under Constantine, down to the Reformation and beyond it to our 
times, the expert may well doubt. We must not, however, forget that not every- 
thing that has happened is to be found in the fragmentary records which have 
come down to us. — A passionate protest is raised against state Christianity from 
the standpoint of primitive Christianity by the Dane, Soeren Kierkegaard, in his 
later writings. In the intensely sarcastic articles published by him in the year 
1855, in a number of journals, and entitled "Moment" (German translation in: 
Soeren Kierkegaard, Attack upon Christianity, edited by A. Dorner and Chr. 
Sehremph, 1896), he again and again contrasts the original preachers of Chris- 
tianity, who gave up their lives for it, with the thousands of " witnesses of the 
truth," employed by the royal Danish government, who by preaching the passion 
of Christ win positions, decorations, silver table-services, gilded reclining chairs, 
and other glories. The true Christian is even to this day recognized by the 
Cross ; not by the gold or silver cross which is worn on a colored ribbon around 
the neck or upon the bosom and marks its wearer as a knight or a commander, 
but by the Cross which is imposed as a martyrdom and a disgrace by the self- 
appointed and official representatives of the world upon those who despise tha 
world for Christ's sake. Indeed, it is perhaps the strangest irony of history 
that the cross, or, translating the Roman custom into modern language, the 



THE MEDIAEVAL CONCEPTION 123 

The judgment of history, however, can and must be a dif- 
ferent one. In order to become the powerful leaven which it 
afterward became, in order to be not merely the euthanasia 
of the old peoples, but a life-principle of the new society of 
nations now appearing upon the theatre of the world, Chris- 
tianity had to assume a positive relation to the world, it had 
to be organized into the strong and permanent form of the 
church, after the manner of a world-kingdom. It is, of course, 
an indisputable fact that it was thereby changed, but it is no 
less certain that this was the only condition under which it 
could have hoped to influence the future historical life of the 
modern nations. It is not probable that the old Christian 
communities would have succeeded in converting and educat- 
ing the warlike Germanic tribes. The latter bowed dowr 
before the brilliant retinue of Christ in the church ; it it 
more than doubtful whether they would have bowed down 
before the followers by whom Jesus himself was surrounded 
on earth. Now, unless we deny that very valuable elements 
have been added to the life of these nations by the church, we 
cannot deny that the transformation of Christianity into the 
church was an historical necessity. But there is no danger 
that an impartial observer will deny such a proposition, 
unless, of course, he is prepared to reject not only the 
church, but the Middle Ages themselves as one great mis- 
take. A fanatical prophet of the Renaissance or a passionate 
follower of the Reformation might perhaps have been ready 
to do such a thing ; at present no one will refuse to admit that 
the spiritual-moral life of the Middle Ages was full of peculiar 
beauty. And this beauty universally depends upon the eccles- 
iastical-Christian character of their thoughts and feelings. 1 
call to mind the tender, high-minded sense of justice, which, 

gibbet, should be worn as a mark of honor. — A book of Leo Tolstoi, My Religion, 
(English translation, New York, 1899) expresses similar views with respect to 
the relation of Christianity to the Greek Orthodox Church. The commentary 
from the inner life of the poet is furnished by his wonderful Popular Storiet 
(Roclam Library). 



124 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

grafted upon the military virtues of the Germanic nations, pro- 
duced such a peculiar type of moral nobility in their knight- 
hood ; and the merciful treatment of the poor and wretched, a 
form of beneficence which, embodied in thousands of charit- 
able institutions, has come down to us, and to this day 
alleviates suffering and dries tears. I also call to mind 
their spiritualized relations to women, and their aversion to 
all sexual unchastity — although the latter frequently failed 
to prevent what is hardly repulsive to the natural man, and 
the former resulted in strange aberrations in the Minnedienst, 
yet the tenderness and rigor of the Middle Ages contrast 
favorably with the frivolousness and superficiality of the 
ancient world. I call to mind the gradual growth of the 
sentiment that slavery, the order of society according to 
the natural right of the stronger, does not agree with the 
commandment of love. Although the church did not abolish 
slavery, but permitted it to exist, like other worldly institu- 
tions, as an indifferent form by the side of the order in the 
kingdom of heaven, nay, expressly recognized it and bought 
and owned slaves herself, she was neither able nor willing 
to hinder the spirit of the Gospel, wherever it triumphed, 
from entirely transforming the relation between masters and 
slaves, so that even the legal form ultimately became impos- 
sible. 1 I finally call to mind the union of the nations in 
the church, which somewhat softened the national antag- 
onisms ; not sufficiently, it is true, to prevent wars, but yet 
sufficiently to rob them of the character of wars of annihila- 
tion, in which these antagonisms result according to the 
natural order of events. We cannot fail to recognize in all 
these things the influence of organized Christianity, which 
had, by assimilating elements of civilization of all kinds, 
become a world-power. And the glorious development of 

1 See the instructive essay by P. Overbeck on the relation of the old church 
to slavery in the Roman Empire in his Studies on the History of the Ancient 
Church (Studien zur Geschichte der alien Kirche), 1875. 



THE MEDIEVAL CONCEPTION 125 

mediaeval art, the promising beginnings of scientific study, 
would they have been possible without the church? The 
" evangelical communities," which clung to the old concep- 
tion concerning the relation of Christianity to the world, have 
always shown indifference or aversion to art and science. 
Hence, whoever does not regard all civilization as a mistake, 
or the participation of the Germanic nations in Christianity 
and ancient civilization as an aberration inconsistent with 
their own immanent development — a view which is possible, 
but which, of course, can neither be proved nor refuted — 
cannot regard the mixture of Christianity with civilization as 
a mere corruption of the Gospel. 1 

1 The above exposition agrees in its historical conception as well as in its criti- 
cal estimate with the view held by Harnack in his History of the Dogma. A few 
passages from the first volume of this work, which gives us a clear idea of the 
growth of the theoretical side of ecclesiastical Christianity, may suffice to show 
this. " By surrounding the Gospel with a protecting shell, Catholicism at the 
same time obscured it. It preserved the Christian religion against acute Hel- 
lenization (Gnosticism), but was at the same time forced to permit a con- 
stantly increasing measure of secularization. In the interests of its worldly 
mission, it did not, indeed, exactly destroy the awful earnestness of the religion, 
but it made it possible for those who were less serious in their convictions to be 
regarded as Christians and to regard themselves as such, by permitting a less 
rigorous ideal of life. It allowed a church to arise which was no longer a com- 
munity of faith, hope, and discipline, but a political community, in which the 
Gospel simply constituted one of many important elements. It invested all 
forms which this worldly community needed, with apostolic — that is, indirectly, 
with divine — authority, in an increasing measure, and thereby corrupted 
Christianity and obscured and rendered difficult the knowledge of what was 
Christian. But in Catholicism the religion for the first time received a systematic 
form. In Catholic Christianity the formula was found which reconciled faith 
and science. This formula satisfied mankind for centuries, and the blessings 
which it brought continued even after the formula itself had become a fetter." 
(I., 275.) Catholicism, the product of the most intimate fusion of Christianity 
with antiquity, "conquered the world and became the foundation for a new 
phase of history in the Middle Ages. The union of the Christian religion with a 
particular historical phase of knowledge and civilization of humanity, may be 
deplored in the interests of the Christian religion, which was thereby made 
worldly, and in the interests of civilization, which was thereby impeded. But 
complaints here become presumptuous : for we are indebted for nothing less than 
everything we possess and prize to the union which has been formed between 
Christianity and antiquity, a union in which neither element has been able to 
overcome the other. But upon the conflicts resulting from this relation our 
inner and spiritual life depends to this day." (p. 284.) 



CHAPTER V 

THE MODERN CONCEPTION OF LIFB 

1. The end of the fifteenth century marks a new epoch in 
the life of the Western world ; the modern era becomes the 
heir of the Middle Ages. The line of demarkation is clear 
and distinct ; it is defined by two powerful spiritual move- 
ments : by the Renaissance and the Reformation. New 
forms of life and a new conception of the universe were subse- 
quently developed. The state, the institution of the modern 
times, gradually supplanted the church, the dominant insti- 
tution of the Middle Ages : the influence of the latter declined, 
the individual became self-dependent in his highest relations, 
in his relation to God, and gradually shook off the guardian- 
ship of the church in matters of faith and salvation. The state, 
on the other hand, was constantly expanding. It deprived the 
church of one function after the other : the school, the promo- 
tion of science and art, the care of the poor and weak, legisla- 
tion and the administration of justice, a field which had been 
largely appropriated by the church. Thus the state became a 
comprehensive institution for the advancement of civilization; it 
was firmly planted in this world while the church had its deep- 
est roots in the transmundane world. — There is a reciprocal 
relation between the development of the world of institutions 
and the world of thoughts. The old conception of the uni- 
verse, based upon authorities and treating of heavenly things, 
was gradually overthrown by the new philosophy, which had 
its formal basis in the principle of rationalism, the principle of 
free investigation, and its material basis in the new cosmology 



THE MODERN CONCEPTION 127 

and natural science, which deal with the things of this 
world. — The development of economic and social life formed 
the starting-point of the entire transformation. The rapid 
increase and expansion of international commerce beginning 
in the thirteenth century gave rise to the first large cities ; 
the new society became more and more intent upon con- 
quering the earth and appropriating its wealth. The yearn- 
ing for the hereafter was stifled in the mad race for the things 
of this world. 

Nevertheless, from the standpoint from which we have 
just been considering the Middle Ages, we shall not regard 
the change as a radical one. We find no such revolution as 
followed the conversion of antiquity to Christianity. Per- 
haps it would be safer to say that the flames which were 
smouldering in the Middle Ages now burst forth ; the ten- 
dency to civilization which already existed in mediaeval times, 
but was somewhat impeded and obscured by the shell of the 
supranaturalistic religion in which it was encased, now over- 
came all resistance. The Renaissance and the Reformation 
represent the breaking of the shell. 

2. The Renaissance. 1 It means the rebirth of classical, 
that is, pre-Christian, pagan, antiquity. Pagan antiquity 
had perished with the conversion of the old nations to Chris- 
tianity. Christianized antiquity, which evolved its new form 
in the church, had undertaken the education of the new 
nations, and had thus far guided their religious, scientific, 
and moral life. The church had also given them the elements 
of the old civilization, above all philosophy and literature; 

1 [For the Renaissance and Reformation see the general and modern histories 
of philosophy, the works mentioned p. 35, and the following: Carriere, Die 
philosophische Weltanschauung der Reformationszeit ; Voight, Die Wiederbelebung 
des classischen Alterthums ; Burckhardt, Die Cultur der Renaissance (Engl, 
translation by Middleman) ; Geiger, Renaissance und Humanismus in Italien und 
Deutschland ; Symonds, The Renaissance in Italy ; Peschel, Geschichte des Zeit- 
alters der Entdeclcungen. See particularly Kuno Fischer, History of Modern Phil- 
osophy, vol. I.. 1, chapters V. and VI. For further bibliography, Ueberweg, vol 
III., §§ 2-6 ; Weber, p. 10, note 1, p. 274, note 6. Tr.] 



128 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

and the young nations had derived instruction and pleasure 
from them ; not without some misgivings, of course : they 
knew (the church told them so) that it was heathen philoso- 
phy and literature, and that it was really not proper for 
a Christian to enjoy them. These doubts and fears were 
wholly given up in the time of the Renaissance. The age 
emancipated itself from the old morose school and task- 
master, the discovery was made that antiquity had itself been 
young before it became old and crabbed, and the youthful 
heathen antiquity was found to be much more attractive 
and grander than Christianized antiquity. All minds were 
nlled with a passionate admiration for antiquity; the pro- 
ducts of its literature, its art, its philosophy, were ardently 
sought after, studied, imitated, and thoroughly assimilated. 
The literary and artistic productions of the Middle Ages were 
thrown aside with the contempt with which the schoolboy 
casts aside his school exercises and texfc-books at the close 
of his course ; everything mediaeval was now designated as 
Gothic barbarism. The age was anxious to think and to feel, 
ico make poetry and to create, to live and to enjoy, like the 
models placed before it by classical antiquity. The putting 
on of the new man received its symbolical expression in the 
rejection of the old and in the adoption of new Latinized or 
Hellenized names. — It must be confessed, however, that the 
Renaissance reached its highest perfection only in Italy. From 
J. Burckhardt's Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, we may 
glean what the " rebirth," the birth of the new man, signified. 
In Italy the evolution was a necessary one. On this side of 
the Alps the movement was not spontaneous, nor did it take 
such deep root in the hearts of the people ; here it was some- 
what imitative in character. And here the conflict between 
the old and the new culture — after the latter had just gained 
a foothold in the universities — was cut short by the breaking 
out of a new conflict, the conflict which Luther inaugurated 
against the church in the name of the Gospel. This struggle 



THE MODERN CONCEPTION 129 

so thoroughly absorbed the attention of the German people, and 
soon after also of the other nations, that the Renaissance was 
completely overshadowed. Only after the at least provisional 
settlement of the conflict in the seventeenth century, after 
a certain equilibrium had been restored between the Catholic 
and Protestant powers, there arose in the middle of the eight- 
eenth century, and now originating in Protestant Germany, 
a kind of literary and artistic after-bloom of the Renaissance. 
The trait common to the first and the second Renaissance was 
a passionate craving for freedom on the part of the individual : 
he was no longer willing to be bound by established opinions 
and institutions, but desired the complete and free develop- 
ment of his particular nature, the complete and free exercise 
of all his impulses and powers ; in the struggle for freedom he 
opposed nature to convention and tradition. But this was ex- 
actly what the Greeks had aimed at : the freest development 
of the individual ; and for that reason Hellenism became the 
ideal of humanity. 

3. The Reformation. In its origin it was quite different 
from the preceding movement. The deeply religious, pas- 
sionately truthful, thoroughly national soul of Luther re- 
belled against the system of dead works and dead dogmas, 
welded together by reason and authority, which, as he be- 
lieved, had, in the form of ritualism and scholastic theology, 
stifled the simple, living, vigorous, and happy faith of old 
Christianity ; it rebelled as well against the worldly, aristo- 
cratic life of pleasure and culture pursued by the high clergy, 
who were permeated with the conceptions of the Renaissance ; 
against the neo-paganism of Leo X. and Albrecht of Mayence, 
which seemed to him a mockery upon Christianity. Luther 
was by no means a man of modern culture and learning: 
these would have been much more in keeping with the Medi- 
cean Pope, at least with the incumbent, if not with the func- 
tion of the office. Nor was he a lover of enjoyment and a 
worshipper of civilization; these, too, were things for which Leo 



130 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

showed a more refined taste and a deeper appreciation than 
he. Luther did not look upon the church doctrine as not ra- 
tional enough nor upon the church-life as not worldly enough ; 
nay, the reverse was the case : he absolutely repudiated reason 
in matters of faith, and he had only a very moderate opinion 
of the value of this earthly life and its civilization. He did 
not absolutely condemn pleasure, and he demanded that men 
labor to perform their earthly tasks ; but he would by no 
means have been willing to espouse the emancipation of the 
flesh and the complete devotion to the problems of civilization. 
Though he emphasized the positive side, he did not do this 
for the sake of civilization and happiness, but in opposition 
to the official view of the church, which characterized the 
monastic life as in itself meritorious and holy. Luther saw 
in it a false self-sacrifice, which, even when sincerely made, 
hindered the true sacrifice of the heart, and, when not sin- 
cere, encouraged a base worship of the flesh under the guise 
of self-denial. His attitude to the church was similar in this 
respect to that of Jesus towards the self-righteousness and 
worship of the Pharisees : he demanded not that we worship 
God less, but that we worship Him more and more deeply, 
and that we practise self-denial. 

The difference between the Reformation and the Renais- 
sance is also clearly seen in their historical relation. We can 
say that the Reformation robbed the Renaissance of the victory 
which the latter already saw within her grasp. The Reform- 
ation, at first in Germany and then in the other countries, 
forced the thoughts of men from worldly things, from 
literary and artistic culture, to which the higher classes of 
society had devoted themselves, back to religious affairs. 
The Humanists, who at first hailed Luther with delight, 
soon almost entirely deserted him again. They saw that 
they had been mistaken in the Wittenberg monk, that 
there was a different spirit in him than they had imagined. 

But when we examine the two movements, not merely in 



THE MODERN CONCEPTION 131 

the form which they assumed at the outset and in the minds 
of their leaders, Luther and Erasmus, when we study their 
historical relations, the matter assumes a different aspect. 
We shall have to confess that they both helped to free the 
modern spirit from its mediaeval covering, that the Eeforma- 
tion, too, especially when we consider its more remote rather 
than its immediate effects, furthered the development of the 
subjective, individual spirit, and the intellectual civilization of 
man. And that was surely not an accident. In a certain 
sense, Luther undoubtedly agreed with Erasmus and the 
Renaissance: the craving of the age for freedom and indi- 
vidualism was alive in him also. Luther at the Diet of 
Worms: — that is certainly a figure deserving to be placed 
at the beginning of modern times, the free subject appealing 
from the authorities to his own reason and his own conscience. 
Herein lies the enormous difference between Luther and Augus- 
tine, with whom he has so much in common in other respects : 
he is wholly lacking in the humilitas towards the empirical 
church, the humble and obedient submissiveness to the faith 
of the church, which is so strongly marked in Augustine. 
In Luther there is a spirit of defiant independence. " My 
cause is God's cause " — with this he boldly and defiantly takes 
his stand against all authorities, and he is never afraid to 
draw the conclusion, and to proclaim it, with the greatest pos- 
sible emphasis : Hence the cause of those who are against me 
is the cause of the devil. 

And this explains the significance of the Reformation for the 
religious life : it makes the individual independent in his 
highest relation, in his relation to God ; it does away with 
the church as a necessary mediator, it does away with almost 
the entire ecclesiastical apparatus, which the centuries had 
constructed in order to secure the salvation of the individual 
by works and formulas and sacred acts. 

Another effect is to be noted. The church, having thug 
lost its raison d'etre gradually disappeared, like an organ 



132 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

that had become unnecessary. New churches were, of 
course, at first established, in the form of state churches ; but 
they did not possess the importance of the old church. They 
were not a great independent institution, but have always 
formed a kind of appendage to the state. The sovereign 
is the head of a state church, the clergy are officials, whose 
number is limited to the demand ; the mediaeval clergy, on the 
other hand, constituted a separate class within or rather out- 
side of society: their function was not to transact official 
business, but to glorify the name of God, for which reason 
there could never be too many priests, churches, and altars. 
This change manifests itself in all the forms of our life. A 
mediaeval city received its character from its churches ; the 
houses of the people were gathered around the houses of wor- 
ship, as the centres of life ; the old Rhenish cities, and the 
old Harz and Baltic cities, Cologne, Mayence, Hildesheim, 
Halberstadt, Wismar, Rostock, to this day take their impress 
from their church buildings. In modern cities like Berlin, 
Hanover, Altona, Darmstadt, Mannheim, the state-building 
predominates : the palace, the government-building, the court 
of justice, the post-office, the railway station, the barracks, 
the prison. Churches are not often seen, and what few there 
are look embarrassed and cramped in the midst of the im- 
mense houses which overtower them, or they stand upon great 
vacant places which they cannot command. 

But not only the architecture of our cities, our entire mode of 
life has been secularized. Asceticism has passed away with 
the monasteries ; through marriage the clergy have become 
members of society. The sacramental acts, the thousand 
sacred customs and ceremonies, with which the entire medi- 
aeval life was interwoven, have, with the exception of a few 
survivals which are also on the point of dying out, disap- 
peared; the numerous holidays have been transformed into 
working days, and the daily divine service has been sus- 
pended. Only on one day of the week have we " church," 



THE MODERN CONCEPTION 133 

as popular usage characteristically expresses it, and as the 
church itself proves; on the other days it is closed up and 
deserted. All this seems to signify that we are living on the 
earth, and desire to live on the earth. Formerly everything 
reminded us of the Beyond, now everything reminds us of the 
Here. 

It can hardly be doubted that the thoughts and feelings 
of the age have also been secularized with the outward forms. 
However artificial the religious life of many may have remained 
in the Middle Ages, the countless references to the hereafter 
and eternity could not fail to make an impression upon the 
hearts of men. With the disappearance of the outward 
ecclesiastical forms, the hearts of the majority were weaned 
from the thoughts of eternity ; they confined themselves more 
closely and exclusively to the earth. It surely was not Luther's 
intention to exhort them to do this. He favored the aboli- 
tion of ascetic institutions, but not in the interests of civiliz- 
ation and good living ; on the contrary, the life of the canons 
and monks seemed to him a form of indolence congenial to 
the flesh, labor and marriage more suitable to the lusts. He 
approved of the restriction of ecclesiastical exercises and acts, 
not in order to gain time for more important worldly affairs ; 
on the contrary, he looked upon them as a mere compromise 
with heaven, to which, after all, our entire life ought to be 
devoted. For Luther heaven remained the home, the earth a 
vale of tears ; and these conceptions and feelings were for a 
long time, if not the prevailing sentiments, at least peculiar 
to particular individuals, in Protestantism. Nevertheless, if 
we consider the total effects, we can say that the Reformation 
helped to turn man's life earthward, towards civilization, and 
away from the hereafter and salvation. However untrue 
monasticism may often prove to its ideal, it nevertheless 
contributes to keep alive in the Catholic world the feeling — 
weak though it may often be — that the goal of life is not 
an earthly one. It still retains something of the spirit of 



134 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

unworldliness characteristic of primitive Christianity. And 
those church exercises and duties, the confessional and peni- 
tential system, the prayers and fasts, have the same effect ; 
superficially though they are usually performed, and great 
though the danger may be of making the religious life ex- 
ternal and shallow, nay of corrupting the morality, they still 
direct the gaze to something beyond this life and its aims. 
We are in the habit of saying that Luther carried Christianity 
from the cloisters into the world, that he exalted fidelity to 
the daily calling into a divine service. This was certainly his 
aim, and we undoubtedly find something of this spirit even in 
our times. On the other hand, it would not be doing justice 
to the truth were we to deny that the great majority used 
their freedom from the duties of external worship to neglect 
every form of divine worship ; even Luther repeatedly com- 
plains that the freedom of the Gospel is abused as a free- 
dom of the flesh. Melanchthon praises Luther in his funeral 
sermon for having delivered us from the paedagogia puer- 
ilis of the old church. It is, however, not yet settled that 
religion can dispense with such a paedagogia puerilis, which 
admonishes us daily by means of petty practices. It is 
also a peculiar fact that men are more ready to believe in 
things and institutions which require something of them : 
they measure their value according to the magnitude of the 
investment. This surely has something to do with the strong 
attachment of the masses to the Catholic church. The Protes- 
tant church demands nothing, that is, nothing outwardly, but 
faith alone ; the conclusion which suggests itself to common- 
sense is : hence it has nothing to offer us, nothing at least 
for which we care. 

Just as little can we or will we deny that the Reformation 
furthered the development of subjective thought, of the criti- 
cal, rationalistic spirit. The downfall of the church shattered 
the great authority which had controlled the thoughts of men, 
not only outwardly, but inwardly, for a thousand vears. The 



THE MODERN CONCEPTION 135 

new churches had no authority ; they attempted to retain it, 
and even vindicated it against their opponents with the same 
external means employed by the latter ; but they were with- 
out inner authority. They owed their existence to revolution, 
to the destruction of the strongest human authority that the 
Occident had ever seen ; they could not hide their origin. 
Against authority they appealed to the Scriptures as the 
higher authority. But did not the old church first invest 
these writings with authority by establishing the canon ? 
And did she not have the right of interpretation on her 
side, according to the practice of centuries ? The appeal to 
a better interpretation of the Scriptures was therefore, ulti- 
mately, an appeal to individual reason and conscience. The 
new churches could not deny any one this appeal, upon 
vhich their own title was based, and whenever they did so, 
fcaeir refusal was an inner contradiction, and therefore without 
inner force. At any rate, the emancipation of subjective 
thought, not only in the Protestant, but also in the Catholic 
countries — whether we regard it as a merit or a fault — 
received a mighty impetus from the Reformation. 

4. The three or four centuries that have passed since the 
beginning of the modern era, are pitched in the same key as 
these preludia. The desire for civilization, which lay hidden 
beneath the Christian-ecclesiastical surface during the Mid- 
dle Ages, is now openly and unreservedly recognized as the 
only legitimate ideal. True, the modern epoch, too, has its 
heavy-laden hearts, who, in their yearning for peace seek 
refuge from the turmoil of the world and find rest in Christian- 
ity. But they by no means meet with either the formal or 
the actual acknowledgment that they have chosen the better 
part. Everything that is really characteristic of the modern 
period, everything with which a history of modern life, of the 
modern state, modern society, modern civilization, modern 
philosophy, modern art and literature, is accustomed to deal, 
belongs to the other movement. Real Christianity is some- 



136 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

thing so foreign to the champions of the modern era that 
they are unable to understand how any one can feel and live 
in that way ; they regard it as extravagant idealism and 
enthusiasm, as a symptom of disease, which has only a 
pathological interest. Even the Catholic world, which has 
preserved the ascetic life in the cloisters, is not very out- 
spoken in confessing its principle. It is a noteworthy fact 
that the Catholic historians do not answer the charge that the 
Catholic countries have not kept abreast of the Protestant 
nations in civilization by declaring that it is to the Catholics' 
credit to have still some thought of eternity, — unlike the 
Protestants, who, being merely intent on the mundane world, 
naturally excel them in that world's civilization. Instead, the 
reproach is really felt as a reproach, and the attempt is made 
to show that it is not well-founded, that the church has really 
done the most for civilization. 

The estimate which it places upon scientific knowledge may 
be used as a criterion of the spirit of an age. According to 
the old Christian conception, the worth of a man is absolutely 
independent of the knowledge and culture he possesses ; in 
the eyes of God, faith and love, and not culture and philoso- 
phy, have worth. The modern era unreservedly returns to the 
Greek conception that the highest and most important func- 
tion of man is the exercise of reason in scientific knowledge. 
The sciences are the pride of the modern times. The Middle 
Ages are despised as a barbarous and benighted period, be- 
cause they have done nothing for science. But we also find 
in the modern estimate of knowledge another peculiar trait, 
which is lacking in the Greeks : for the Greeks, knowledge was 
the highest good as such and desired for its own sake ; the 
moderns prize it especially for its practical utility. For them 
physics is a practical science, nay, the practical science ; for 
the champions of modern civilization do not think very much 
of that practical philosophy of which the Greek philosophers 
expected so much. Morality, Buckle believes, has always 



THE MODERN CONCEPTION 137 

been the same, it has always been very much approved and 
very little followed ; the progress of the human race depends 
upon the progress of the natural sciences. So a great many 
of the leaders of modern culture believe with Buckle. When 
our newspapers, which reflect the opinions of their readers, 
by pre-established harmony, let us say, desire to praise the 
nineteenth century, they at once begin to speak of railroads 
and steamships, telegraphs and electrotechnics, armor-clads 
and breechloaders. 

5. It is worth observing how soon the modern age became 
conscious — instinctively, one is tempted to believe — of its 
peculiar character. Francis Bacon dates the beginning of 
the modern era from the three great inventions of the mag- 
netic needle, gunpowder, and printing. These achievements 
characterize the spirit of the new epoch of the history of 
humanity ; its motto is : Knowledge is power. Inventions 
(opera) are now made the test of knowledge. The old 
science gave its possessor skill in vanquishing opponents in 
debate; the new science gives him the power to conquer 
nature by art ( vhysici est non disputando adversarium, sed 
naturam operando vincere). Bacon has attempted, in his two 
main works, to lay the foundation and to outline the method 
of this new science. In a little unfinished essay, which is 
found among his works under the title Nova Atlantis, he has 
drawn a picture of the perfect civilization of the future. The 
undertaking has frequently been repeated since then; it is 
worth while, however, to cast a glance at the first attempt 
of this kind. The Nova Atlantis is an island in the far West. 
The narrator, who had been driven out of the right course 
and carried to its shores, tells us that the noblest institution 
of the entire country is a natural-scientific society founded 
by an ancient king and called Domus Salomonis, or the Col- 
lege of the Six Days' Works. " The end of the foundation,'' 
so the guide explains, " is the knowledge of causes, and the 
secret notions of things ; and the enlargement of the bounds 



138 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible." 
Among the great number of particular institutions which 
serve this purpose are large and deep caves under the earth, 
some of them three miles in depth ; they are used " for all 
coagulations, indurations, refrigerations, and conservations 
of bodies ; " as well as for producing natural and new arti- 
ficial metals, from materials which lie there for many years ; 
also for curing certain diseases ; and for prolongation of 
life in some hermits that choose to live there, and indeed live 
very long, and possess wonderful knowledge. There are also 
high towers, the highest about half a mile in height, or in- 
cluding the height of the hill about three miles, which are 
used especially for meteorological observations ; lakes both 
salt and fresh for the production of fish and water-fowl as 
well as for experiments in the water; artificial wells and 
fountains with all kinds of mineral waters, amongst them the 
so-called Water of Paradise (aqua Paradisi), which is un- 
usually efficacious for the preservation of health and the 
prolongation of life. They have also great and spacious 
houses, in which the meteorological occurrences, snow, hail, 
rain, and thunder-storms are imitated, and all kinds of 
animals are produced ; large and various orchards and gar- 
dens, " wherein we do not so much respect beauty, as variety 
of ground and soil, proper for divers trees and herbs," bear- 
ing the richest fruit ; " we have also means to make divers 
plants rise by mixtures of earth without seeds." " We have 
also parks and enclosures of all sorts of beasts and birds, 
which we use not only for view, or rareness, but likewise for 
dissection and trials; that thereby 'we may take light what 
may be brought upon the body of man. Wherein we find 
many strange effects ; as continuing life in them, though 
divers parts, which you account vital, be perished and taken 
forth ; resuscitating of some that seem dead in appearance ; 
and the like. We also try all poisons and other medicines 
upon them, as well of chirurgy as physic. By art, likewise, 



THE MODERN CONCEPTION 139 

we make them greater or taller than their kind is, and con- 
trariwise dwarf them, and stay their growth ; we make them 
more fruitful and bearing than their kind is ; and contrari- 
wise barren and not generative. Also we make them differ 
in color, shape, activity, many ways. We find means to 
make commixtures and copulations of different kinds ; which 
have produced many new kinds, and them not barren, as the 
general opinion is. We make a number of kinds of serpents, 
worms, flies, fishes, of putrefaction ; whereof some are ad- 
vanced (in effect) to be perfect creatures like beasts or birds ; 
and have sexes, and do propagate. Neither do we this by 
chance, but we know beforehand of what matters and com- 
mixture what kind of those creatures will arise." Of course 
the most astonishing results are produced in their brew- 
houses, bakehouses, and kitchens, etc. : " we strive to have 
drinks of extreme thin parts, insomuch as some of them put 
upon the back of your hand will, with a little stay, pass through 
to the palm, and yet taste mild to the mouth." There are also 
places where experiments are made with lights and colors ; 
here lights of every strength and color are produced ; they 
have also " glasses and means to see small objects afar off 
and minute bodies perfectly and distinctly, such as heavenly 
bodies, or the parts of small animals, or corpuscles in urine 
and the blood." In other places experiments are made with 
sounds, smells, and tastes in the same highly practical way. 
There are also engine-houses, where wonderful cannons, fly- 
ing-machines, ships and boats for going under water, 
machines, as well as artificial men, beasts, birds, fishes, and 
serpents are made ; " item some perpetual motions (nonnulli 
motus perpetui)" * 

We see, these are new pictures which the new age paints 
upon the curtain of the future. The old Christianity raised 
its eyes from the earth, which offered nothing and promised 

1 [See Ellis, Spedding, and Heath's edition of Bacon's works, vol. V., pp. 359- 
413. — Tr.] 



140 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

nothing, to heaven and its suprasensuous glory. The new 
age is looking for heaven upon earth ; it hopes to attain to 
the perfect civilization through science, and expects that this 
will make life healthy, long, rich, beautiful, and happy. 

Bacon once called himself the herald of the new era. In- 
deed, it is a splendid army that follows him to the conquest 
of heaven upon earth. Let us hear another and still another 
leader of the host in regard to the goal and the methods of 
the enterprise. 

6. Descartes, who has a greater claim than any other to be 
called the leader of modern philosophy, formulates the pro- 
gramme of his philosophical reforms in the little treatise on 
Method (1637). In the last part he tells that by his method 
he reached new notions in metaphysics and morals which 
pleased him greatly ; but that, owing to his hostility to writ- 
ing books, he had not published them. " But as soon as I 
had acquired some general notions respecting Physics, and, 
beginning to make trial of them in various particular diffi- 
culties, had observed how far they can carry us, and how 
much they differ from the principles that have been employed 
up to the present time, I believed that I could not keep them 
concealed without sinning grievously against the law by 
which we are bound to promote, as far as in us lies, the gen- 
eral good of mankind. For by them I perceived it to be 
possible to arrive at knowledge highly useful in life, and in 
room of the Speculative Philosophy usually taught in the 
Schools, to discover a Practical, by means of which, knowing 
the force and action of fire, water, air, the stars, the heavens, 
and all the other bodies that surround us, as distinctly as we 
know the various crafts of our artisans, we might also apply 
them in the same way to all the uses to which they are 
adapted, and thus render ourselves the lords and possessors 
of nature. And this is a result to be desired, not only in 
order to the invention of an infinity of arts by which we 
might be enabled to enjoy without any trouble the fruits of 



THE MODERN CONCEPTION 141 

the earth, and all its comforts, but also and especially for 
the preservation of health, which is without doubt, of all the 
blessings of this life, the first and fundamental one ; for the 
mind is so intimately dependent upon the condition and 
relation of the organs of the body, that if any means can 
ever be found to render men wiser and more ingenious than 
hitherto, I believe that it is in Medicine they must be sought 
for. It is true that the science of Medicine, as it now exists, 
contains few things whose utility is very remarkable ; but 
without any wish to depreciate it, I am confident that there 
is no one, even among those whose profession it is, who does 
not admit that all at present known in it is almost nothing 
in comparison of what remains to be discovered ; and that 
we could free ourselves from an infinity of maladies of body 
as well as of mind, and perhaps also even from the debility 
of age, if we had sufficiently ample knowledge of their causes 
and of the remedies provided for us by Nature. But since I 
designed to employ my whole life in the search after so neces- 
sary a Science, and since I had fallen in with a path which seems 
to me such, that if any one follow it he must inevitably reach 
the end desired, unless he be hindered either by the shortness 
of life or the want of experiments, I judged that there could 
be no more effectual provision against these two impediments 
than if I were faithfully to communicate to the public all the 
little I might myself have found, and incite men of superior 
genius to strive to proceed farther, by contributing, each accord- 
ing to his inclination and ability, to the experiments which it 
would be necessary to make, and also by informing the public 
of all they might discover, so that, by the last beginning 
where those before them had left off, and thus connecting the 
lives and labors of many, we might collectively proceed much 
farther than each by himself could do." And in the preface 
to his system (Principia Philosophiae, 1644) he says, speak- 
ing of the utility of the new philosophy as opposed to the 
philosophy of the school, " that it is by it we are distinguished 



142 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

from savages and barbarians, and that the civilization and 
cuUuj-s of a nation is regulated by the degree in which true 
philosophy flourishes in it, and, accordingly that to contain true 
philosophers is the highest privilege a state can enjoy." The 
philosophy, however, which he means, he describes soon 
after : " All philosophy is like a tree, of which Metaphysics 
is the root, Physics the trunk, and all the other sciences 
the branches that grow out of this trunk, which are re- 
duced to three principal, namely, Medicine, Mechanics, and 
Ethics." 1 

We may say, I believe, that no age has ever had a clearer 
idea of its goal and of the road leading to it: the goal is 
heaven on earth, the road to it, natural science. Through 
technology and medicine, the two great applications of natu- 
ral science, the future will reach a state in which men will, 
without work and in permanent health of body and soul, 
enjoy the fruits of the earth ; perhaps, as the serious Des- 
cartes no less than the somewhat charlatanistic Bacon antici- 
pates, medicine may even bring about a prolongation of life 
and an increase of all intellectual and moral powers. 

The fearlessness, nay we may say, the bold recklessness, 
with which the control and use of nature by science is planned 
for man, stands in remarkable contrast to the awe with which 
the Middle Ages contemplated nature. The Middle Ages, too, 
sought to gain control over things, they too suspected that it 
might be obtained through knowledge. But they had at the 
same time a secret dread of this knowledge and activity ; they 
regarded it as an unholy business, as a black art, as the 
work of the devil, who as the prince and lord of this world 
could indeed grant sway over it. All those who had the repu- 
tation of possessing such effective knowledge, were looked 
upon as magicians : Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Pope 
Sylvester II. Soldan quotes a very characteristic narrative 
from Gregory of Tours' History of the Franks in his History 

1 [Translation from Veitch's 10th edition.} 



THE MODERN CONCEPTION 143 

of the Trials of Witches. 1 " The archdeacon Leonartes of 
Bourges suffered from a cataract, and no physician could cure 
him. At last he betook himself to the Basilica of St. Martin, 
where he spent two or three months in constant prayer and 
fasting. On a fast day his eyesight was restored to him. He 
hurried home, and sent for a Jewish physician, at whose 
advice he placed cupping-glasses on his neck to complete the 
cure. And then it happened that as the blood began to flow, 
his blindness began to return. Full of shame Leonartes went 
back to the church, prayed and fasted as before : but in vain. 
Let everybody, so Gregory concludes, learn from this occur- 
rence that when once he has been blessed with heavenly medi- 
cines never again to have recourse to earthly arts." 

This fear, from which, by the way, the Greeks and Romans 
were not free, the modern times have wholly lost ; nothing is 
proof against them ; man has a right to do what he can do. 
The belief in transcendent powers, good and bad, by whose 
help man is supposed to exercise a magic influence upon 
the course of nature, has been constantly waning since the 
beginning of the modern era ; man's confidence in his natural 
powers has increased in the same proportion. 

7. The modern science of nature is supplemented by the 
modern science of the state and society. The latter, too, is a 
practical science : it seeks first to construct the ideal of the 
perfect state and the legal order, and then to realize it in 
practice. Political Utopias are the counterpart of the physi- 
cal-mechanical Utopias; they accompany each other, being 
frequently connected with each other, through the entire age, 
from the beginning of the sixteenth century down to the 
socialistic Utopias of the nineteenth century. By the side of 
Descartes, the leader of modern natural philosophy, stands 
the Englishman Thomas Hobbes, the real leader in the field 
of political philosophy. He claims this position for himself : 
astronomy begins with Copernicus, physics with Galileo, 

1 Geschichte d«r Hexenprocesse, L, 114. 



144 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

physiology with Harvey, while the science of the state is no 
older than his own book Be cive. 1 He has the highest opin- 
ion of the practical value of this science. In the dedicatory 
epistle which accompanies his work on the state, we read : 
" For everything in which the present excels the barbarism of 
the past we are indebted to mathematical physics ; when 
moral philosophy will have solved its problems with the same 
certainty, it will be hard to see what human labor can farther 
accomplish for the happiness of this life." For Hobbes the 
state is the earthly providence ; endowed with unlimited 
rights and powers, it bestows peace and welfare upon its sub- 
jects : "outside of the state there is passion, war, fear, 
poverty, ugliness, solitude, barbarism, ignorance, ferocious- 
ness ; in the state, reason, peace, security, wealth, beauty, 
society, elegance, science, benevolence." 2 

So there is no doubt that, if to the perfect mechanics and 
medicine we add the perfect politics, we shall realize heaven 
on earth. 

8. Finally, a man may be mentioned who paved the way 
for these views in Germany : I mean Leibniz. There was 
hardly a field of human thought and human action which 
Leibniz left untouched with his plans for the promotion of the 
happiness of the human race. With feverish haste he was 
constantly devising new projects : for the establishment of an 
improved German Empire, of a political system for Europe, of 
a peaceful church union, for the codification of all scientific 
and technical knowledge in encyclopedias, for the reform of 
the system of education, for the organization of the book 
trade, for the care of the poor by employing them in public 
workshops, for the improvement of mining. But one project 
especially occupied him during his entire life : the organiza- 
tion of scientific research. Leibniz endeavored to establish 
institutions in the North and in the East, after the pattern of 
the London and Paris societies. As his final goal he perhaps 

1 Preface tc De corpore, 1655. 2 Dt cive, X., 1. 



THE MODERN CONCEPTION 145 

had in view an international federation of societies into a 
great association, whose aim should be to preserve all the 
knowledge of the human race, to regulate all research, and so 
to extend the empire of reason on earth, as far as possible. 
His endeavors in regard to the invention of a philosophical 
calculus and a universally intelligible, international sign- 
language, suggest such a project. The object of all science, 
however, consists in its application ; not curiosity, but utility 
determines the value of every science. In the memorial to 
the Elector of Brandenburg in which he proposed the estab- 
lishment of a Society of Sciences at Berlin (1700), we read : 
" Such an electoral Society should not be governed by mere 
curiosity or desire for knowledge, and occupy itself with fruit- 
less experiments, or be content with the mere invention of 
useful things without applying them, as has been the case in 
London, Paris, and Florence : but the object should be utility 
in both theory as well as in practice from the very start. The 
aim would therefore be to combine theoriam cum praxi, and 
not only to improve the arts and the sciences, but also the 
country and the people, agriculture, manufacture, and com- 
merce, and, in a word, the articles of food." 1 We are 
reminded of what the scientific society in the Nova Atlantis 
accomplished for the improvement of articles of food. 

These are the views of the leaders of thought with respect 
to the aim of their age : civilization ; above all, technical-scien- 
tific civilization, based upon scientific knowledge and secured 
by perfect political institutions — that is the programme of 
the modern era. 

9. We must confess, it has labored earnestly and success- 
fully for the execution of its programme. As for the con- 
quest of nature by science, even Bacon, who was not modest 
in his claims, would hardly refuse to admit that astonishing 
results have been achieved. It is true, the elixir of life and 
the perpetuum mobile have not yet been found, and the flying 

1 Leibniz, German Writings, published by Guhrauer, II., 267. 



146 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

machine and the art of making gold are still in the future ; 
but many of our inventions would make a creditable showing 
by the side of those in the Atlantis. And in the field of poli- 
tics and law, some very serious beginnings have been mado, 
to say the least. The entire seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies were filled with the desire to bring about the rational 
State by means of the science of the state, and thereby to 
promote the welfare of all. The names of Frederick William 
II. and Frederick II., Maria Theresa and Joseph II, prove 
the sincerity and the earnestness of these efforts. And the 
French Revolution really desired the same thing, though in a 
different way : the state in which reason and law should rule 
for the common good. 

With unmixed feelings of satisfaction and pride the 
Aufklarung contemplated its achievements, at the end of the 
eighteenth century. A few years ago a document was taken 
from the steeple-knob of St. Margaret's Church at Gotha, 
which had been placed there in the year 1784 ; this paper 
contains the testimonial which the modern era gave itself a 
hundred years ago. " Our age," it declares, " occupies the 
happiest period of the eighteenth century. Emperors, kings, 
and princes humanely descend from their dreaded heights, 
despise pomp and splendor, become the fathers, friends, and 
confidants of their people. Religion rends its priestly garb 
and appears in its divine essence. Enlightenment makes giant 
strides. Thousands of our brothers and sisters, who formerly 
lived in sanctified inactivity, are given back to the state. 
Sectarian hatred and persecution for conscience' sake are 
vanishing ; love of man and freedom of thought are gaining 
the supremacy. The arts and sciences are flourishing, and 
our gaze is penetrating deeply into the workshop of nature. 
Handicraftsmen as well as artists are reaching perfection, 
useful knowledge is growing among all classes. Here you 
have a faithful description of our times. Do not haughtily 
look down upon us if you are higher and see farther than we ; 



THE MODERN CONCEPTION 147 

recognize rather from the picture which we have drawn how 
bravely and energetically we labored to raise you to the posi- 
tion which you now hold and to support you in it. Do the 
same for your descendants and be happy." 1 

10. When we compare the self-confidence of the dying 
eighteenth century, as expressed in these lines, with the 
opinion which the dying nineteenth century has of itself, we 
note a strong contrast. Instead of the proud consciousness 
of having reached a pinnacle, a feeling that we are on the 
decline ; instead of joyful pride in the successes achieved and 
joyful hope of new and greater things, a feeling of disap- 
pointment and weariness, and a premonition of a coming 
catastrophe ; in literature instead of the essential harmony of 
thought and feeling, a chorus of confused, excited, and dis- 
cordant voices, the like of which has never been heard 
before ; in public life, instead of the unanimity of all 
thoughtful and right-thinking men which we find in the 
age of enlightenment, such discord and vindictiveness in 
party strife, as has long ago discouraged all men of refine- 
ment and serious thought from participating in it ; but one 
fundamental note running through the awful confusion of 
voices : pessimism ! Indignation and disappointment : these 
seem to be the two strings to which the emotional life of the 
present is attuned. Schopenhauer is its philosophical choir- 
master, everywhere his voice is heard through the din. All 

1 In Hettner, History of Literature in the Eighteenth Century, III., 2, 170. 
With a similar statement a contemporaneous historian of modern philosophy, the 
clear-sighted J. G. Buhle, begins the exposition of the philosophy of the eight- 
eenth century : " We are now approaching the most recent period of the history 
of philosophy, which is the most remarkable and the most brilliant period of 
philosophy as well as of the sciences and the arts and of the civilization of 
humanity in general. The seed which had been planted in the immediately preced- 
ing centuries began to bloom into perfection in the eighteenth. Of no century 
can it be said with so much truth as of the eighteenth that it utilized the achieve- 
ments of its predecessors, to bring humanity to a greater physical, intellectual, and 
moral perfection. It has reached a height, which, considering the limitations of 
human nature and the course of our past experience, we should be surprised to 
see the genius of future generations maintain." 



148 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

poets and litterateurs have studied him, and have learned 
from him the great truth : the obverse represents the essence of 
things, the fa§ade is mere sham and illusion. What Rousseau 
hurled into the face of his times as an unheard-of paradox, 
namely, that culture and civilization do not make men better 
and happier, Schopenhauer teaches as a philosophical theorem i 
Civilization increases our misery, civilization is one great faux 
pas. 

What is the meaning of these phenomena ? Is pessimism 
a sign that the European family of nations is nearing its old 
age ? Have the modern nations reached that point in their 
history which the old world had reached at the beginning 
of the Roman Empire ? Are the pessimistic poets and philo- 
sophers the precursors and predicters of the end, of the dis- 
appearance of civilization ? Is the yearning for deliverance 
taking possession of our age, as it took possession of the 
Hindoos and antiquity ? Does the phrase fin de siecle, with 
which our neighbors are playing, signify not only the century 
which is drawing to a close, but the end of this occidental 
world-epoch in general, — finis saeculi? 

Whoever leans to pessimism himself will affirm the ques- 
tion ; every philosopher of history obtains the key for the 
interpretation of things from subjective feelings. He, how- 
ever, whose personal feelings prompt him to take the other 
side, will deny it ; he will see in pessimism nothing but an 
expression of morbid discontent on the part of particular 
individuals, from which no age is ever free, but which 
happens to strike a more responsive chord to-day, owing to 
certain conditions of social-economic as well as political life. 
A purely theoretical philosopher of history, one who does 
not allow his personal inclinations and moods to warp his 
judgment, will perhaps regard both of these interpretations 
of the signs of the times as too extreme. Undoubtedly, he 
might say, for example, many phenomena may be observed 
in the life of the present which remind us of the Roman 



THE MODERN CONCEPTION 149 

Empire, in the field of art and literature as well as in the field 
of economic and political activity : the shallow, empty-headed 
virtuosity in the arts, which labors to satisfy the parvenu's 
craving for pomp, the romantic love of the " old German," 
which bears such a curious resemblance to the Empire's 
romantic mania for the old Roman ; the laborious and aim- 
less learned research, which in reality cares absolutely noth- 
ing for science itself, but which does care for the rewards 
offered for scientific work ; the literature, which seems to 
indicate extreme nervous weakness in the authors as well as 
in the readers, — just look at the outside of our books, the 
covers marked with inscriptions running in all directions and 
showing all the colors of the rainbow, the titles hailing the 
reader with exclamation points and question marks ; the 
luxury and the proletarianism of the great cities ; the cen- 
tralization of our entire life, by which the strength and indi- 
viduality of culture is suppressed ; the constantly growing 
necessity of basing the existing order, which cannot always 
depend upon its inner purposiveness, upon political-military 
powers ; and the like. 

On the other hand, the same philosopher of history might 
continue, there is no lack of vital energy or of important 
problems to occupy the future life of the civilized nations of 
Europe in the most worthy manner. Perhaps, he will say, 
the whole phenomenon is to be interpreted as a passing stage 
of depression, caused by the prevailing lack of universally 
recognized hopes and ideals, to unite the hearts of all. 
Nations like individuals are kept alive by hope and yearning, 
not by their fulfilment ; when the ideals are realized, there 
comes a time of restless seeking for a new goal. And it 
might perhaps be shown that we are at present passing 
through such a period. The German people particularly, who 
seem to be most affected by the feelings mentioned, have had 
their long yearnings satisfied by enormous achievements: 
they at last have their emperor and empire, and parliaments 



150 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

in plenty ; and the year 1870 has at least freed our neighbors 
from a hated regime, from Caesarisin and popery. Both nations 
are now repeating the experience, which is so common, 
that the hope was more beautiful than the realization. Thus 
our philosopher of history might reason, and add his belief 
that new problems, which are already beginning to announce 
themselves, will awaken new feelings of power and love 
of life : that they will bring more justice into our social 
institutions, more seriousness and truth, more substance 
and beauty, into the intellectual life even of the masses, and 
not merely of the masses. Nay, perhaps, so he might pro- 
ceed, we must regard the entire previous development of the 
modern nations as having been merely the prelude to an abso- 
lutely independent modern civilized life ; for evidently these 
nations, if we consider the Middle Ages as their appren- 
ticeship and school-days, have just left school, or rather 
have not even yet left it altogether, for do not all of those who 
are destined for the higher professions still go through the 
school of antiquity ? Hence, if the period of senility is not to 
come immediately after the period of boyhood in the modern 
nations, we must expect that their emancipation, which is 
presumably close at hand, will be followed by the period 
of perfect maturity. — A proof, however, so our philosopher 
would most likely add in conclusion, that will bind the 
intellect, is impossible here in the very nature of things: 
nations are still more in the dark concerning the future 
of their course than individuals. A little piece of the 
traversed road is faintly illuminated by history, and a dis- 
mal ray perhaps falls upon the steps -immediately before us. 
But soon the path loses itself in the illimitable darkness 
with which eternity encompasses the present. 

Let me here say a word concerning another phenomenon, 
which has been exciting the German youth of the most recent 
years, Nietzscheanism, the twin brother and antipode of Schopen- 
hauerism. The ideas by which Friederich Nietzsche, who had 



THE MODERN CONCEPTION 151 

been undergoing a constant change of heart, and had already 
passed through many stages of thought, first attracted the 
attention of wider circles, are contained in his latest collections 
of aphorisms : Thus Spake Zarathustra ; On the Other Side of 
G-ood and Bad ; and especially, The Genealogy of Morals ; to 
which should be added also his last work : The Twilight of 
Idols, or How to Philosophize with the Hammer} The preface 
of this last little treatise bears the date of the day " on which the 
first book of the transformation of all values (Die Umwertung 
alter Werte) was finished," evidently to announce the fact 
that this key-stone of his work marks the dawn of a new 
world-era. He apparently believes that the birthday of this 
book will rival in importance the birthday of Christianity, 
which inaugurated the first transformation of all values in 
the Occident ; that the transformation which once began 
with Jesus will be cancelled again by Nietzsche, and that 
a new evaluation will be made on the basis of a naturalistic 
" Tmmoralism " with individualistic-aristocratic tendencies. 
Nietzsche hates morality ; morality invariably seeks to thwart 
the instincts ; on the plea of bringing about the triumph of 
reason, it endeavors to make man sick and weak, in order 
thus to tame him more easily, or, as we say, to improve 
him. In Christianity, he says, this battle against the instincts 
appears in its most exaggerated form ; its morality is the 
morality of the slave, which sprang from the inveterate 
hatred of the oppressed Jewish nation against the victorious 
Romans, the morality of the weak, dependent, wicked, hence 
deceitful, revengeful, and malicious race, rising against the 
morality of the lords (Herrenmoral) , the morality of the 
strong, fearless, brave, upright, high-minded, noble race. 
By producing Christianity and spreading it among the 
nations, Judaism took the most complete revenge imaginable 

1 [Also sprach Zarathustra ; Jenseits von Gut und Btise ; Zur Genealogie der Moral ; 
Gotzendammerung, oder wie man mit dem Hammer philosophiert. Translation* 
edited by A. Tille. — Tr.] 



152 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

upon the Romans : it poisoned them morally, so to speak, 
compelled them in turn to regard the strong, healthy, brave, 
and proud as the bad ; the weak, humble, crushed, and sub- 
missive as the good, with whom God was well pleased. The 
final deliverance of the Western mind from this infection, — 
that would be Nietzsche's mission. 

It is not my intention to criticise these thoughts ; aphor- 
isms cannot, in the nature of the case, be examined as to 
their objective validity; they do not aim to give an exhaustive 
explanation of the essence of the subject, but to view it, from 
some standpoint or other, in a startling light, — which, of 
course, does not hinder us from looking at it from other points 
of view in a different light. Had not this thinker, who was 
endowed with such brilliant, but dangerous talents, fallen into 
utter mental darkness, many symptoms of which are especi- 
ally discernible in his last work, he would, we may venture to 
believe, soon have followed different channels, since further 
exaggerations along the lines pursued by him were impossible. 
What now, we might ask, becomes of the superhuman being 
(JjbermenzcK) , after he has exhausted himself in thinking, 
and has realized himself ? What is his real work in this 
world ? It used to be regarded as the mission of heroes and 
great men to lead their brothers to light and life. This 
new superhuman being seems to despise such a task ; he 
holds himself aloof from the masses and considers himself 
superior to them, he will have nothing to do with these 
worthless creatures, who simply exist to make him possible. 
But how does he spend his time ? Does he contemplate 
himself, write aphorisms, and marvel at the distance between 
himself and the masses ? Is that all he can find to do ? 
That would be rather trivial for a superhuman being ; and I 
am inclined to think that the philosopher himself would soon 
have shuddered at the emptiness of such an existence. And 
then, perhaps, he might have understood the littleness of his 
anti-Christ as compared with the Christ, in whom there was 



THE MODERN CONCEPTION 153 

surely something more of the truly superhuman element than 
in this swaggering despiser of humanity and self-conceited 
boaster. 1 

However, let all that be as it may. The question that in- 
terests us is, What do these ideas signify as a sign of the 
times ? What makes the Ubermensch so attractive to the 
young? Nietzsche has become a staple article in the peri- 
odicals and newspapers; on the application-blanks of our 
public libraries the name of Nietzsche occurs more frequently , 
perhaps, than any other ; yes, I have been told by teachers in 
the gymnasium that traces of Nietzsche's spirit and writings 
may occasionally be found in the German compositions of 
their pupils, by no means of the least talented among them. 
What draws them to Nietzsche ? Is it his impressive style ? 
Is it his dazzling, blending, lightning-like, instantaneous illu- 
mination of things ? Or is it the fact that all the old truths 
have come to be regarded as trite by our youth, and that 
they are insanely fond of the most unheard-of paradoxes ? 



1 An article by Gallwitz has just fallen into my hands : Nietzsche as a Prepa- 
ration for Christianity (Nietzsche als Erzieher zum Christentum) (Preussische 
Jahrbiicher, February, 1896). The author admirably shows how far Nietzsche 
misses the mark, when he absolutely opposes his ideal of life to that of Jesus. 
There is a far-reaching formal agreement between them. The " gregarious im- 
pulse " may frequently play a prominent part in the churches which call them- 
selves Christian ; no one who is acquainted with them will look for it in Jesus 
and his first disciples ; on the contrary, primitive Christianity is really char- 
acterized by its extremely independent attitude towards the established and 
prevailing opinions and customs, and even towards conventional values and 
standards. Nor is it inclined to overestimate morals and morality ; on the con- 
trary, the really important thing is, to use Nietzsche's words, " moralinfreie " 
[moralin-less ?] virtue ; legality, has no value ; as the son of God, as the free 
child of the Father, the Son of Man knows that he is superior to the law. 
And Nietzsche could also have found in Jesus and his teaching the truth that 
to rise above the world of sense and desire is the fundamental characteristic of 
perfection. One thing, to be sure, he would not have been able to find there : 
self-adoration, haughtiness towards the people, contempt for the masses. These 
qualities he would have been more likely to find among the Pharisees. He found 
them in Schopenhauer, not in Schopenhauer the thinker, but in Schopenhauer 
the man. And he always remained a true follower of Schopenhauer the man, 
even after he had repudiated the latter's philosophy. 



154 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

The young always have a predilection for the new and un- 
heard-of ; it has at least the merit of being opposed to the 
old and established forms, under the weight of which we 
are groaning, to the trivial truths of the Sunday School class, 
the trivial truths of morals, and those upon which candidates 
for degrees are examined. Socrates the first Greek deca- 
dent ; Kant a deformed, intellectual cripple ; a good conscience 
the result of a good digestion; morality the castration of 
nature by decadence-philosophers — indeed this is saying 
something, something different from the old, tiresome stories 
which have been heard and repeated ad nauseam. Are these 
paradoxes intoxicating our young men, who have grown tired 
of the everlasting disciplining and examining ? Are we like 
the Athenians, can we no longer bear the customary, and have 
we therefore become the slaves of every newest fad I 1 Or 
has the biting sarcasm with which all the old heroes and 
time-honored truths are cast aside, a pleasant ring in the 
ears of an age that has been filled with distrust of all estab- 
lished institutions by the din of the penny-a-liners and the 
officiousness of the busybodies who are for stifling truth ? 
Or is it the obscure prophecy of something new and great 
that is to come that is making an impression? Perhaps 
something of all of this. And the final and deepest reason 
is perhaps the one to which we alluded before : the lack of 
an ideal, of a ruling ideal, an ideal to elevate the hearts, 
to inspire the will, and to give the multitude a common aim. 
Hence the impatient unrest of the times, the feverish searching 
and groping after something great and unusual, after a guide 
to new and higher forms of life. What was it that attracted 
so many readers to Rembrandt as an Educator, if not the 
promise to show the helpless an ideal, an ideal of a freer, 
richer, greater German life ? What is it that gains credu- 
lous hearers and adherents for the other prophets, who spring 

1 AovXot 6vres ruv del ar6iru>v, virepSvrat 5e rS»v tlud6rwv, so Cleon calls the 
Athenians, in Thucydides, IH., 38. 



THE MODERN CONCEPTION 155 

up in a single night and preach to the German people in 
popular meetings and pamphlets, but the deep and universal 
longing to learn something of the path which we now ought 
to follow ? What else is it that is gathering around the 
name of Paul de Lagarde a little community of reverent 
admirers ? To point out to the German people new goals 
and new ideals : that is the ultimate purpose of his German 
Writings, which contain, besides much that is strange and 
harsh, so much more that is good and great. 

If it is this, the hunger for an ideal, that brings forth all 
these phenomena, then they are not — however much there 
may be in them that is unsatisfactory — symptoms of decline, 
but symptoms of the unrest which precedes the birth of a 
new age. In that case the struggle of art and poetry for new 
forms and a new content will also have to be interpreted as a 
struggle of the new ideal to reveal itself. 

The young men engaged in this struggle do not like to 
be referred to the past : their faces are turned to the future. 
Nevertheless, I should like to ask the disciple of Nietzsche to 
peruse with care the first book of the Platonic Republic. 
He will meet in it a man who with great confidence and 
self-conceit teaches the doctrine that injustice, when on a 
sufficient scale, has more strength and freedom and mastery 
than justice ; perhaps he will be tempted to read on in this 
remarkable, so old and yet so modern book. And then, per- 
haps, he may also be induced to re-read his Goethe, the 
second part of Faust, the scene between Mephistopheles and 
the Baccalaureus, in which the eternal theme of the old men 
and the young men is so wonderfully worked out. 

11. I cannot close this discussion on the modern conception 
of life, without directly adverting to a question which has 
already been partly answered, — the question concerning the 
modern spirit in its relation to Christianity. 

If we employ the name Christianity solely to designate a 
mode of life and feeling, a belief and conviction, absolutely 



156 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

resembling that of the first Christian communities, then we 
cannot call our modern life Christian. To abstain from the 
world, to shrink from civilization, to turn to the Beyond : 
these are the characteristic traits of old Christianity ; no one 
will regard them as characteristic of the modern period of 
history. 

But if we do not take Christianity in this its narrowest 
sense, if we apply the term to the entire historical movement 
which begins with the life and death of Jesus — and that too 
we have a good historical right to do — then the case is dif- 
ferent. Then we shall have to confess, whether we like it or 
not, that the modern era is still so greatly dominated by 
Christianity that its history can and must be regarded as a 
part of the history of Christianity. David Strauss propounds 
the question in his Old and New Faith : 1 Are we Christians ? 
He answers it in the negative, and shows that the old creed 
no longer expresses the prevailing convictions of the modern 
times. Herein he is undoubtedly right. Does it not follow, 
then, that we are no longer Christians ? Certainly, if the 
creed has the force of a definition, excluding every one from 
Christianity whose belief it does not express, — which was 
indeed its original purpose. But the inference would be 
misleading if we were to conclude further: hence Chris- 
tianity has become extinct. In answer to this proposition 
we should have to say : Christianity is older than the creeds 
and is most likely destined to outlive them ; it has become a 
reality in the historical life of the European nations, and can 
never again become unreal ; it can only perish with these 
nations themselves. It has helped to fashion the will and 
the heart of these nations into what they are, and has left its 
mark indelibly impressed upon their character. Even those 
who feel decidedly opposed to Christianity cannot escape its 
influence ; it continues to determine their thoughts, feelings, 
and volitions. 

1 Dtr alte und neue Glaube, translated by M. Blind. 



THE MODERN CONCEPTION 157 

The influence of Christianity upon the life and morals of 
the nations which, during the Middle Ages, were being pre- 
pared for their future mission within the bosom of the church, 
has already been slightly touched upon above (page 123) ; I 
do not wish to recur to it. 1 Here, however, I should like to 
call attention to some traits in our mode of feeling and our 
conception of life which have their origin in Christianity. 

Three great truths Christianity has engraven upon the hearts 
of men. 

The first is : Suffering is an essential phase of human life. 
This truth really escaped the Greeks. They were familiar with 
suffering, but only as a fact which ought not to be. Their 
philosophers, at least, never got beyond this view; although 
the tragic poets divined its deeper meaning. Christianity has 
taught us to appreciate suffering ; suffering is not merely 
a brutal fact, but essential to the perfect development of the 
inner man : suffering withdraws the soul from too complete 
devotion to the temporal and perishable ; it is the antidote to 
vanity and the love of show ; it is, in Christian phrase, the 
great means of education by which God turns our hearts 
from the earthly and temporal upwards, to the eternal, to 
Himself. And so suffering leads to inner peace. Whoever is 
familiar with suffering will understand the significance of 

1 Let me refer the reader to a work that shows the enormous power which 
Christian charity has exercised and continues to exercise even in our days, the 
admirable work of Uhlhorn, History of Christian Benevolence (Geschichte der 
christlichen Liehesthatigkeit). The third volume takes up the period from the 
Reformation to the present. It shows how many deeds of charity, not only 
money-offerings, but also personal ministrations, have been performed, especially 
in the nineteenth century, the like of which has perhaps never been seen since 
the days of primitive Christianity ; the Protestant world particularly, which, for 
a long time, has been somewhat behindhand in this respect, is now rivalling the 
Catholic church. — May we not see in the impartiality with which the work of 
both churches is here described a sign that the time will come again when they 
will respect and esteem each other as different forms of pure Christianity 1 
Protestantism undoubtedly finds less difficulty in making this acknowledgment 
than Catholicism ; should it ever meet with a sympathetic response from the 
Catholic church, then only will the former defection, which caused so much 
bloodshed and suffering ^among the German people, be wholly justified. 



158 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

Christianity. Wherever sorrows are borne, a craving and 
seeking for Christianity usually soon manifests itself ; a 
healthy, vigorous, and active life is more apt to cling to the 
Greek conception of life. But, inasmuch as no life is wholly 
free from suffering, there will be times in every life when the 
heart is susceptible to the influences of Christianity. 

The second great truth which Christianity has impressed 
upon humanity is this : Sin and guilt are essential phases 
of human life. This truth, too, the Greeks did not see, or at 
least not in its entire force. They were familiar with the ugly 
and the base ; their comic poets ridicule these, and their philos- 
ophers show how men err with respect to the highest good, and 
how they miss the right road to happiness. For Christianity 
it is the most serious and most awful truth that the incli- 
nation to evil is deeply rooted in the essence of the natural 
man. Theology has formulated this conception in the doc- 
trine of original sin, whether happily or not need not con- 
cern us here ; but it is an undoubted truth that human nature 
contains, besides beautiful and good capacities and impulses, 
inclinations which justify the harsh remark that man is the 
wicked animal, V animal mechanic par excellence. Man is born 
with two venomous teeth which are wanting in the other ani- 
mals : they are called envy and malice. The Greeks, too, were 
skilled in their use, as the horrible picture proves which 
Thucydides gives of the self-laceration of this nation. But 
with the exception of particular personalities like Thucydides 
and Plato, the ancients were not conscious of the awfulness 
of the thing; it did not seem to be incompatible with their 
demands upon human nature. Christianity has raised the 
standard ; it measures man by the justice and holiness of 
God, which have become incarnate in Jesus. This way of 
feeling, too, has been indelibly impressed upon us. It is 
impossible for us to accept evil as complacently as did the 
Greeks, to contemplate our lives with such self-satisfaction as 
was possible to the Greeks and Romans. Occasionally, at 



THE MODERN CONCEPTION 159 

some neo-humanistic funeral, the Horatian Integer vitce sceler- 
isque purus, is sung ; I am inclined to believe that the song 
would sound oppressive to the dead man, if he could hear it ; 
perhaps it would remind him of the beginning of that prayer 
of the Pharisee : God, I thank thee that I am not as other 
men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this pub- 
can ! And would the concluding lines of the song about the 
sweetly laughing Lalage be likely to have a pleasant ring in 
his ears at such a time ? Perhaps the old Good Friday hymn 
would be more to his taste : " Christ, thou lamb of God, 
thou who bearest the sins of this world, have mercy upon 
us." The proud words of the dying Julian — "I die without 
remorse, as I have lived without sin " — we too might possibly 
utter before an earthly tribunal, but can we utter them before 
the tribunal of our own conscience, before the tribunal of 
God? 

The third great truth which Christianity has impressed 
upon us is : The world lives by the vicarious death of the just 
and innocent. Whatever system-loving theology may have 
made of it, it remains the profoundest philosophical-historical 
truth. The nations owe their existence to the willingness of 
the best and the most unselfish, the strongest and the purest, 
to offer themselves for sacrifice. Whatever humanity pos- 
sesses of the highest good has been achieved by such men, 
and their reward has been misunderstanding, contempt, exile, 
and death. The history of humanity is the history of martyr- 
dom ; the text to the sermon which is called the history of 
mankind is the text to the Good Friday sermon from the 
fifty-third chapter of the Prophet Isaiah. According to an 
old legend, an innocent life must be walled up in the founda- 
tions of a building if it is to endure. This belief might have 
been taken from history ; history, too, immures innocent lives 
in the foundations of its structures. Among the institutions 
of the Western world, the church has thus far proved to be the 
most enduring; its foundation is laid in the vicarious death of 



160 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

Christ ; for which reason the old church followed the sugges- 
tive custom of placing the symbol of the eternal sacrifice in 
the centre of the religious church life. — The question has 
often been debated : What is the secret of the power of the 
Catholic church, which has often been reported dead and 
regarded as dead ? The superstition and ignorance of the 
masses ? Their childish fear of things which do not exist ? 
Or the firmness of the church organization? The prudence 
of its leaders ? The support which it receives from the lords 
of this earth ? Perhaps all of these contribute something, 
although we might also say these are the very things which 
more than once brought the church to the verge of ruin. The 
real secret most likely is that men and women have always 
found in it the strength to sacrifice their lives. Even though 
their number was not great, yet so precious and effective is 
sacrifice that it has been able to counteract the debasing and 
pernicious influence of the many who used the church as a 
means of good living. — Protestantism, too, owes what living 
force it possesses to this fact. And so it will also be in the 
future. Christianity will not be preserved by privy counsel- 
lors and professors, it can only be preserved by those who are 
ready to work, to suffer, and to die for it. 

That is the eternal meaning of the belief in the divinity of 
Jesus. Paganism endows its gods with happiness, beauty, 
splendor, and honor ; the kings and lords of the earth are 
most like them. Christianity recognizes God in the form of 
the lowliest of all the children of men ; He was the most 
despised and most unworthy among them, full of suffering 
and sickness. This form God chose "when he became flesh. 
Whoever wishes to imagine God as man, says the Christian 
faith, let him not think of the victor on the field of battle, 
of the king in his purple, of a wise and honored man whom 
every one admires, but let him picture to himself a man who 
suffers everything and endures everything, who bears the sin 
of the whole race upon his shoulders, and who remains con- 



THE MODERN CONCEPTION 161 

stant in all his sufferings, who exhibits infinite patience and 
kindness, who turns even upon his tormentors a look of 
infinite love and pity. That is the picture of the all-good 
in human form, that is God himself. " To be good is to do 
good, and to suffer evil, and to persevere therein to the end." 

Joined with these three elements is a fourth : the longing 
for the transcendent. Antiquity was satisfied with the earth ; 
the modern era has never been wholly free from the feeling 
that the given reality is inadequate. Something of the mood 
which Christianity introduced into the Occident — the feeling 
that the real home of the soul is not on earth, that this life is 
a pilgrimage in a foreign land — constantly confronts us in the 
poetry and in the life of the modern age, and not only among 
those who accept the teachings of primitive Christianity, but 
also among the children of the world. There are people 
who believe that the time for transcendent religion has 
passed, that a religion of morality will take its place. I do not 
believe that the future will bear them out. The old theolog- 
ical metaphysic of the dogma may indeed pass away, and I 
fondly hope with the friends of ethical culture that religious 
living will more and more take the place of religious believ- 
ing ; but I do not believe that the Western nations will ever 
be wholly free from the need of creating, with prophetic long- 
ing, a reality of a higher order beyond the given world. Even 
for a man like Goethe, who stands firmly upon the earth and 
joyfully appropriates it with his entire being, it has always 
been the deepest yearning of his heart to gaze into a bound- 
less, purer realm, in which everything that the hazy atmo- 
sphere of our narrow earthly existence encompasses dissolves 
and vanishes. 

After all this, we may say : The mixture, antagonism, and 
reconciliation of Christian and Greek elements is character- 
istic of the modern conception of life and the world. There 
are times when the tormer, and there are times when the 
latter, preponderates j the time for which Paul Gerhardt sang 



162 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

felt otherwise than the age of enlightenment, and the genera- 
tion for which Wilhelm Meister and the Roman Elegies were 
written. But even here hearts have never been wanting that 
have sought and found consolation and deliverance from 
earthly sorrow in the harsh sublimity of the church hymns. 
And not only do these contrasts exist together in the same 
age : they also exist together in the same heart. Friederich 
Lange, the author of the History of Materialism, who was a 
thorough-going disciple of the modern conception of the uni- 
verse and life, once, so we are told in his biography, 1 had a 
conversation with the philosopher Uberweg concerning the 
future of religion or the religion of the future. Lange 
demanded that there be added to the cheerful modern build- 
ing in the Greek temple style, at least a Gothic chapel for 
troubled hearts, and to the national worship certain festivals, 
during which the happy mortal, too, might learn to plunge in- 
to the abyss of misery and again find that he was as needy of 
salvation as the unhappy and even the wicked. In our modern 
Christianity misery and contrition are the rule, the feeling of 
cheerful exaltation and the joy of victory the exception : he 
desired to reverse this order, but " not to ignore the gloomy 
shadow which, after all, accompanies our entire life.'* The 
church hymns, too, he wished to adopt into the new 
worship ; and to Uberweg's protesting question : " Which one, 
for example ? " he at once replied : Raupt voll Blut und 
Wunden. 

It seems to me, we may regard Lange as a typical repre- 
sentative of the modern man in his attitude to the opposition 
between Hellenism and Christianity, as a more typical repre- 
sentative than the somewhat one-sided Uberweg, who inclines 
to a harsh logical dogmatism. For the intellectually-trained 
logician the differences are irreconcilable, and he sees in the 
attempt to reconcile them a lack of consistency ; the psycholo- 
gist and sociologist, to whom nothing human is alien, sees the 

i By Ellison, 214. 



THE MODERN CONCEPTION 163 

predisposition to both tendencies in the human soul, and ex- 
periences them himself in his own heart. 

Indeed, if man were a purely logical being, then he would 
have to draw the line sharply between these extremes ; the 
affirmation and the negation of this earthly life, Hellenic love 
of life and Christian yearning for deliverance from all that 
is transitory, would be regarded by him as contradictory 
opposites, between which there can be no middle ground. 
But man is not mere intelligence, his inner life is not a logi- 
cal mechanism which rejects everything contradictory ; he is 
also and primarily a willing and feeling being, a being that 
experiences pleasure and pain, hope and fear, love and hate, 
admiration and contempt. The judgments, too, which he pro- 
nounces as such a being he endeavors to comprehend into a 
system ; thus arise the different conceptions of life, and the 
interpretations of the world based upon them, the religious 
systems. The greatest opposition which exists between them 
is that obtaining between culture-religions, or world-affirm- 
ing religions, and religions of redemption. But extremes 
do not exclude each other here as in scientific systems. In 
cosmology one accepts either the Ptolemaic or the Coper- 
nican system. When, however, we deal with systems of 
world-conceptions and life-conceptions, which have their deep- 
est roots in feeling, the case is different ; here the lines are 
not so sharply drawn, there is more inconsistency, mixture, 
approximation, — nay these are in a certain sense natural 
and necessary. 

Every man experiences the great extremes of pleasure and 
pain, health and sickness, youth and old age, life and death ; 
he suffers good and evil from men, he arouses and feels love 
and hatred, trust and distrust, admiration and contempt. 
No one, therefore, is absolutely unfamiliar with the ex- 
tremes of happiness and worldly joy, and disappointment, 
disgust, world-weariness, and satiety of life. Inasmuch as 
every mood is absolute while it lasts, and steeps the whole 



164 ORIGINS OF MOEAL PHILOSOPHY 

world and all life in its color, we may say that the tendency 
is temporarily present in every man to produce these two 
systems, the optimistic and the pessimistic. Every one has 
in his own experiences, the fundamental conditions at least 
for understanding both systems. It will depend upon his 
temperament and his experiences, which of them will gain 
the supremacy, and finally become habitual with him. But 
in some form or other both will be present; in some form 
or other he will employ them both to universalize his tem- 
porary mood. To men like Goethe and Wilhelm von Hum- 
boldt, who were able beautifully to develop and happily to 
exercise healthy and remarkable natural powers, under happy 
and appropriate conditions, the Hellenic conception of life, a 
worldly optimism, was becoming and natural. But moments 
were not wanting even in Goethe's life when he entertained 
other feelings towards Christianity than aversion to the cross, 
for did he not once call Saint Filipo Neri his saint ? And 
perhaps Humboldt was not always in the mood which once 
prompted him to write that even in the hour of death a few 
verses from Homer, even though they be taken from the cata- 
logue of ships, would be more consoling and elevating than 
anything in the world. On the other hand, whoever is 
endowed with a gloomy temperament and has suffered great 
misfortunes, whoever has been disappointed and ill-treated 
by men, whoever has erred much and sinned much, or 
perhaps looks back upon a wrecked life, will be more in- 
clined to seek and find rest in a view that absolutely 
repudiates this temporal life, and looks forward to deliver- 
ance and the hereafter ; Hamann and Schopenhauer were 
natures of this kind. But their lives, too, were not devoid 
of experiences which enabled them to appreciate the Hellenic 
conception of the universe. In the representations of art at 
least, Schopenhauer contemplates reality with pleasure and 
love. 

Moreover, the same mixture of opposites is not wanting in 



THE MODERN CONCEPTION 165 

the earlier civilizations. The Greeks, too, were not unfamiliar 
with the feeling of the transitoriness and nothingness of the 
earthly. How often the feeling of world-sorrow and weari- 
ness of life strikes a responsive chord in their poetry, in 
Homer, in the tragic poets ! And so, conversely, a naive 
love of nature is not wanting in the Gospels ; Jesus in the 
parables lovingly contemplates the life of nature; and with 
what love and pleasure his gaze rests upon the children ! 
And Saint Augustine surely did not always think, in his 
direct daily intercourse with men, of the system according 
to which the natural virtues are splendid vices. 

We shall therefore have to say, the systems of ethical nat- 
uralism and supranaturalism, carried out consistently, are 
logical schemes, that do not, like natural-historical defini- 
tions, directly express the life, thoughts, and feelings of the 
actual man. They mark a relation of the soul to reality as 
it would be if certain experiences and moods were the only 
ones. The real life oscillates between extreme moods, and 
the judgment on life and reality correspondingly wavers be- 
tween these extreme formulas. This is true of the life of indi- 
viduals as well as of the life of nations and times. The 
theoretical value of such conceptual schemes consists in this, 
that they are an indirect means of understanding and deter- 
mining reality. They have the significance of artificial lines, 
of co-ordinate axes, by which we may determine for the infinite 
variety of living forms their place in the historical -moral world. 
It is the same here as with the definitions of the temperaments 
or the forms of the state, which do not, as we know, immedi- 
ately express or describe the concrete reality, but serve, as 
logical schemes, indirectly to comprehend and describe it. 

More important than the theoretical value of these schemes 
is the practical value of the two great forms of life and their 
self-expression in poetry and art. They supply the modern 
nations with the spiritual forms for the great modes and 
moods of life. In the history of the Gospel, in the life of the 



166 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

saints, the sister of charity finds the models which elevate 
and strengthen her in her calling ; from the songs of Paul 
Gerhard t the sick and troubled soul derives consolation and 
comfort. I wonder how a Greek consoled himself when he 
was sick and weak. Or were the Greeks never sick ? And, 
conversely, in the great figures of Greek and Roman history, 
in the vigorous eloquence of Demosthenes, the Germans 
sought and found the means to revive the courage of a 
vanquished people, and to direct it towards the goal of free- 
dom and greatness. And so even now the poems of Homer 
may inculcate in the souls of our boys the first examples of 
youthful love of honor and prudence, manly vigor and dig- 
nity. The advantage of this long and varied preliminary his- 
tory is that it offers us clearly defined conceptions, according 
to our different natures and talents, our different fortunes 
and life-experiences. And we are therefore unquestionably 
justified in introducing our young men to both worlds, to 
that of antiquity and that of Christianity, not merely in 
order to give them historical knowledge, but to enable them 
to contemplate the different lots of life, so that each one may 
prudently select that which is fitting for him. But for that 
very reason we should not obliterate and dull the opposition 
between those great historical forms of life, but should clearly 
define it. Each of them can supply us with figures of inner 
greatness and perfection, which, as typical examples, will 
forever preserve their power of attraction. 

So much for the subjective compatibility of the two types of 
a perfect life. It is really possible to admire Saint Francis 
and at the same time to feel a hearty and grateful sympathy 
with a nature like Goethe's, however far apart their ideals of 
life may be, objectively considered. Only we must not desire 
to canonize Goethe or look for philosophy and culture in the 
saint, — rather we should see the positive elements in both. 
Yes, we shall be compelled to say that a world composed of 
nothing but holy beggars would be as tiresome as it is impos 



THE MODERN CONCEPTION 167 

sible ; the saints need the children of the world as a foil to 
set them off. 

In conclusion, let me say a word concerning an objective 
approximation, which becomes apparent when we compare 
the two types with a third, to which they are both opposed. 

We may distinguish between three conceptions of a good 
life, and accordingly between three forms of conduct. The 
first seeks the good in sensuous enjoyment ; the second finds 
it in the exercise of human-spiritual powers in a varied civili- 
zation ; the third, at last, transcends the earth and discovers 
the goal of life in the blessedness of the hereafter, which is here 
enjoyed in anticipation. The first view is, according to the 
Greek belief, the ideal of the Asiatic barbarians ; the second, 
that of the Greeks ; the third, that of the Christians. 

It is plain that the second and third views make common 
cause against the first. The rule of reason, the limitation 
and discipline of the sensuous desires, is demanded by both 
as the precondition of perfection. So far as that goes, an ascetic 
element is by no means wanting even in Greek morality ; it 
is strongly enough emphasized by Plato, the Stoics, and still 
more by the later philosophers. Indeed, the word asceticism 
is derived from the Greek language, — it signifies, first of 
all, the discipline of the animal nature, which was practised in 
the gymnasia, and also that of the inner life, which was 
practised in the philosopher-schools. It is well known that 
even Paul is familiar with the figure. — Of course, Christi- 
anity with its demand of self-denial and holiness, goes much 
further than Greek asceticism, which always remained more 
or less a form of self-preservation ; the development and exer- 
cise of the spiritual powers in philosophy and science formed 
the positive content of life, for the sake of which the discipline 
of the senses was demanded. 

On the other hand, however, we also find attempts at a 
positive treatment of the mundane world in Christianity ; 
among them, for example, the governance of human life ac- 



168 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

cording to the principle of brotherly love, the perfection of a 
kingdom of God on earth. The love of neighbor becomes a 
definite and tangible thing only in case an earthly goal is pre- 
supposed, which it is the function of love to assist in attaining. 
And a Christian doctrine, a kind of science, also existed even 
at the beginnings of Christianity ; and blessedness consists 
in contemplating God. When Christianity began to develop 
as a permanent historical form of life, when the expectation 
of an early end of the world failed to be realized, the positive 
elements were unfolded ; in the church a universal form of 
life was produced, in theology a Christian science, in wor- 
ship a motive and tendency to art. That the Graeco-Roman 
example exercised a highly important influence in all this 
was natural and inevitable ; living in the world and attempt- 
ing to pervade the world, Christianity adopted some of the 
forms of the world. 

Thus we have an approximation of the extremes from both 
sides. The inner fundamental opposition remains, the ideal 
of perfection is quite different in either case ; but still there 
are approximations and agreements, not only in minor points. 
And this made it possible, when the church abandoned its 
original exclusiveness as a community of saints, for a broad 
stratum to be formed, within the church, between pure Greeks 
and pure Christians, composed of such as sought to combine 
in their lives Christian and Hellenic elements, holiness and 
worldly beauty and culture, faith and philosophy. We can 
readily understand why such persons should have felt inclined 
to minimize, as much as possible, the differences between the 
two elements of their souls. Whoever looks at things histori- 
cally will, it is true, deny the similarity between Hellenic 
humanity and Christian holiness, but he will not doubt the 
subjective sincerity of conviction in those who do minimize 
the differences, and he will recognize the subjective possibility 
of reconciling these opposites in human nature, as well as its 
objective possibility in the two great historical forms of life. 



CHAPTER VI 

MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN MORAL PHILOSOPHY * 

1. The theological moral philosophy. 

The supranaturalistic-religious conception of life and con- 
duct, representing, as it does, one of the two possible courses 
of life, is of very great interest to every thinking man. Not 
so great is our interest in the attempts of the theologians to 
construct a systematic ethics upon this view. These attempts 
lack the fundamental precondition of theoretical interest : 
the desire to solve, by means of an unprejudiced investigation, 
the problems which life propounds to the acting and judging 
man. Theology finds an answer for all questions in revela- 
tion ; the Sacred Scriptures determine with absolute authority 
not only the faith, but also the rules of life. The problem is, 
therefore, simply to establish, to understand, and to arrange 
the given content, to defend it against pagan and heretical 
errors, and finally and above all to make it fruitful for life. 
The moral sermon, the edifying interpretation, puts a check 
upon scientific research. 

The possibility of a really scientific ethics, an independent 
theory of action, is absolutely precluded by the fundamental 
principle of church Christianity. Greek ethics tries to dis- 
cover by what conduct the goal of all human striving, eudae- 
monia, can be naturally realized. The Christian, too, strives 
for happiness, if we take this term in the widest sense, but 

1 [For mediaeval ethics see the references on pp. 35 and 65 ; also the works 
of Stockl, Haureau, and Rousselot on the history of scholastic philosophy. 



170 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

he finds it not in this earthly life, but in transmundane 
blessedness, of which, it must be confessed, he already re- 
ceives a foretaste in this life, in the happy feeling of peace 
with God. Eternal blessedness is not, however, like Greek 
eudaemonia, the natural effect of a certain mode of life, but 
is bestowed by God as an act of grace upon those who do 
His will. His will, however, He has declared in the Sacred 
Scriptures. The function of the moralist is therefore not 
scientifically to investigate the conditions of happiness which 
are necessary in the very nature of things, but to interpret 
and systematize the existing divine commands. If the will 
of God is posited as the final and sole cause of the differ- 
ence between good and bad, then there is no recognizable 
natural connection between the goal of life and the conduct 
of life. The final consequence of this conception is drawn 
in the doctrine of predestination. 

I shall confine myself to mentioning a few of the most im- 
portant phenomena in this group of literature. 

We may regard as the first attempt at a systematic ex- 
position of Christian ethics the treatise of St. Ambrose on 
the duties of the clergy (de officiis ministrorum). In form he 
follows Cicero's work on duties ; the new content is, so far as 
possible, inserted into the scheme of the four cardinal virtues. 
The author candidly declares that he cares very little for the 
form of the investigation ; to the objection that he does not 
proceed systematically in his construction of ethics, he an- 
swers: "But that is the business of the art of logic, first to 
define the concept of duty and then to divide it into its kinds : 
we, however, shun theory (nos autem fugimus artem) ; we 
bring to view the examples of the ancestors, in order thereby 
most effectually to urge others to imitate them." 1 The ex- 
amples are mostly taken from the writings of the Old Testa- 
ment. This is quite natural ; the New Testament does not 
aim at the establishment of a worldly order ; far from it. In- 

1 I., 35. 



MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 171 

deed, an ethics that adapts itself to a life in this world will 
find it hard to handle. The Old Testament is indispensable 
to a church that endeavors to regulate our daily conduct by 
means of moral legislation. Still, it remains a curious fact 
that Ambrose, himself a Roman, now finds it possible to refer 
the Romans to the patriarchs and kings of the Jews as their 
ancestors. 

The later moralists, and first among them Augustine, add 
to the four cardinal virtues the three theological virtues, 
faith, love, and hope, thus completing the sacred number 
seven. Corresponding to these seven virtues are seven fun- 
damental forms of sin : pride, avarice, anger, gluttony, licen- 
tiousness, melancholy, dullness (acedia, a/cqBeta, satiety of 
life would perhaps be the most appropriate translation). The 
expositions are fond of describing the Christian life as a 
battle against these powers of darkness which obstruct the 
entrance to the kingdom of God. " Forces and counter- 
forces are arranged, the dangers are brought to light, a speci- 
fied number of virtues and sins are opposed to each other, 
seven to eight fundamental names on both sides, and the 
spiritual gifts of Isaiah besides ; this entire apparatus, which 
was capable of still greater elaboration, served to keep before 
the mind the thought of the constant conflict going on be- 
tween the two forces." * 

The rules of monachism were formulated according to the 
same principles. Their aim was to fashion the entire sur- 
roundings so that the realization of Christian perfection 
might be facilitated to the greatest possible degree. The 
state of holiness might also be attained outside of the cloister, 
it did not consist in the observance of the rules of monastic 
life ; but this life was supposed to be the easiest road to per- 
fection ; all obstacles and hindrances which life in the world 
placed in the way of the Christian were here removed, so far 

1 Gass, History of Christian Ethics, I., 192. The two volumes of this work 
give a detailed account of theological morals. 



172 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

as was possible. The monastery was the citadel in which the 
warriors of Christ defended themselves, under the most favor- 
able conditions, against the attacks which Satan directed 
against them in the form of the flesh and the world. 

The monastic rules circumscribed the life of Christian per- 
fection, while a lower limit was reached for the average Chris- 
tian life in the confessional and the penitential system, 
which were gradually more definitely formulated. When the 
church became state, and entire nations were received into 
Christianity, it was of course no longer possible to carry out 
the demand of a separation from the world. As the world 
became less objectionable, especially on account of the dis- 
appearance of idolatrous sacrifices, the church grew less timid 
in recognizing the institutions and aspirations of the world. 
Worldly feelings and a worldly mode of life became more 
and more compatible with membership in the church. On 
the other hand, a minimum of righteousness was demanded 
from all members as a new law, and ecclesiastical penalties 
were imposed upon unlawful acts and omissions. In the 
penance-books, which became necessary, especially when 
Christianity was transplanted to Germanic soil, we have the 
origin of a church morality in the form of a legal system. 

2. It is not my purpose, nor am I able, to give even an 
outline of the history of theological ethics during the Middle 
Ages and modern times. I shall content myself with indi- 
cating the nature of this science. It was, as a rule, character- 
ized by the desire to combine Christian holiness and human 
perfection. Both the lex divina, the divine law, given by 
revelation and authentically interpreted by the church, and 
the lex naturce, the law of perfection impressed upon the 
things by the Creator and recognized by the reason, were 
accepted as sources of knowledge. The universal human 
duties might be deduced even from the latter; here the 
attempt of Aristotle served as the pattern ; besides, this law 
was the subsidiary source in all cases where revelation failed 



MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 173 

to give express commands. The specifically Christian-relig- 
ious duties, on the other hand, were derived from the Scrip- 
tures and the laws of the church. 

Within the Catholic church this form of moral theology has 
continued without change down to the present time. When 
we take up one of the more modern works in this field — for 
example, the widely-read and much admired book of the Jesuit 
P. Gury * — what first surprises one not acquainted with 
this literature is its impersonal-juristical character ; the author 
presents a legal system, giving proofs and motives, interpre- 
tations and precedents. The second surprising fact is that 
time seems to have made no impression upon such works. 
A number of authorities, continuing without interruption from 
the beginnings of scholastic theology down to the present, 
accompany the entire exposition ; writers of the twelfth and 
thirteenth centuries are quoted by the side of those of the 
seventeenth and eighteenth, as living and recognized authori- 
ties. It is as though history had left no trace upon this sys- 
tem ; only occasionally do we notice that we are dealing with 
a work of the nineteenth century : namely, when an institu- 
tion or a defect of the present gives rise to a question and a 
response. — This branch of science owes its origin to the con- 
fessional and the penitential system. It is necessary for the 
father-confessor to know what is duty, what sin, what is the 
degree of the sin, and where on the other hand the domain 
of the allowable begins. This determines the form : sharply 
defined definitions, their logical consequences, finally the solu- 
tion of problems and difficulties. The formal principle of 
authority in this system is the will of God, as expressed in 
the ten commandments and the Sacred Scriptures in general. 
The aforesaid lex naturce is recognized as a subsidiary source. 

There is manifestly a serious danger in such an exact jurist- 
ical formulation of morality : it tends to make our entire 
moral life artificial. The natural inclination is apt to inter- 

1 Compendium theologiae moralis, ed. vi., Romae, 1880, 2 vols. 



174 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

pret the system and its application in the confessional to mean 
that the fulfilment of the requirements will permit the agent 
to make the most of the allowable. And since, owing to the 
nature of morality, the lines cannot be drawn as sharply as in 
the case of the positive law, a wide margin is left for those 
inclined to extend the boundaries of the permissible, to 
evade the real demands by making fine distinctions and in- 
terpretations, and to rest satisfied with mere appearances. A 
large part of the Jewish formalism, which Jesus opposed with 
the true and spiritual worship has again found its way into 
the Catholic church. It cannot fail to act according to the 
tendency peculiar to it : and this tendency is to entice such 
natures as are not protected by an original sincerity of heart 
to deceive God and themselves with a "statutory pseudo- 
worship" (Afterdienst'), to use Kant's expression. 

The section in P. Gury's work on the duty of Hearing Mass 
may serve as a sample of this moral theology's method of 
treatment. Three things are necessary for the performance of 
this duty : (I) Bodily Presence ; (II) Attention of the Spirit ; 
(III) The Appropriate Place. As for the first point, two things 
are demanded, (1) The Moral, and (2) The Uninterrupted Pres- 
ence. (1) Moral Presence ; that is, the person must be present 
in such a way that he can be regarded as one of the partici- 
pants in the sacrifice ; it suffices, however, that he be in a 
place from which he can follow the mass in its three main 
parts, either as a spectator, or as an auditor, or by watching 
the signs made by the other participants. (2) Uninterrupted 
Presence ; that is, from beginning to end, so that he commits 
a serious sin who misses a considerable part of the mass, a 
small sin who misses an inconsiderable part, unless excused 
by a good reason. — Now follow solutions of doubts : (1) The 
presence at the mass is valid even when the person does 
not see the priest, or hear his words, but still distinguishes 
the parts of the sacred act by the sound of the bell, the song 
of the choir, and the movements of the participants, and 



MEDIEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 175 

11 morally " joins them, even though he stand outside of the 
church because there is no room inside. 2. There is also a 
greater probability (est probabilius) that he, too, lawfully hears 
the mass who is staying in a neighboring house from which 
he can see the altar or the assistants through the window or 
the door, or can distinguish the parts of the mass, provided 
the intervening space is but small ; in case there is a large 
space or a street between, he cannot be said to be " morally " 
present. Some fix the limit at thirty steps. 

Then follow answers to doubts and questions in refer- 
ence to the Uninterruptedness of the Presence, with an 
exact definition of the degree of guilt, which the omission of 
each particular part involves. I omit these items, and pro- 
ceed to the second point, the Attention of the Mind. A dis- 
tinction is made between two kinds of attention : (1) Inner 
Attention, in which a person really observes what the priest is 
doing ; (2) Outer Attention, which consists in avoiding every 
external act that hinders the mind from paying attention, as 
for example, talking, drawing, etc. The Inner Attention in 
turn is threefold : (a) that which is directed upon the words 
and acts of the priest; (b) upon the meaning of the words 
and mysteries; (c) upon God himself in prayer and pious 
contemplation. The definitions and distinctions are now 
followed by the principles of application : (1) For the valid 
hearing of the mass (ad Missam valide audiendam) external 
attention at least is absolutely necessary. So all authorities. 
(2) Some inner attention is also requisite, at least the will to 
hear the mass. (3) But any one of the three forms of inner 
attention suffices (sufficif). (4) Loud prayers are not abso- 
lutely necessary, but commendable. And now come again 
questions (quasita*) and answers (responsa). Is the inner 
attention necessary in order to avoid grievous sin (sub gravi) ? 
The answer is in dispute : the affirmation is probabilior, but 
the negation too is probabilis (that is, sanctioned by good 
authority), since the presence with voluntary, though merely 



176 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

external, attention is an actus sufficienter religiosus. In prac- 
tice, the author adds, the difference is not great. For even 
according to the stricter view, a moderate attention (attentio 
in gradu remisso) suffices, that is, if directed upon the main 
parts of the mass. But according to the other, the requisites 
are : (1) a pious emotion, or the real intention to honor God ; 
(2) such attention that the participant can say to himself 
that he is a real participant, and consequently that he pays 
attention to the main parts, at least confusedly (in confuso). 
Hence, believers should not be lightly accused of a lack of 
attention while attending mass, but should rather be admon- 
ished lovingly, devoutly, and diligently to turn their minds to 
the divine mysteries. — It is evident that all this is not much 
unlike a code of etiquette : for a social call a black coat, a 
high hat, and gloves are requisite, but one or the other may 
be dispensed with under certain circumstances. 

The entire field of duties is gone through in the same way : 
the duty of justice, which is really susceptible to this treat- 
ment, likewise the duty of love of enemy, the duty of charity, 
the duties of married life; everywhere we find the same 
attempt to stake off exactly the boundaries of that which is 
required (requiritur) ; everywhere the unfortunate sufficit, 
according to the probable or more probable, or according to 
the opinion of all. The advice, too, concluding the examina- 
tion of the obligations in regard to the mass, is not infrequently 
repeated: Do not interrogate punctiliously and frighten the 
conscience, but admonish lovingly. But, on the whole, this 
juristical treatment of morality will leave a painful impression 
on one not accustomed to it, not on account of the harshness 
of its demands — on the contrary, the sufficit often comes 
surprisingly soon — but on account of its entire method of 
fixed prescriptions and outward compliance, and its attempt to 
appraise the most spiritual things in the world. 1 

1 It is customary to criticise such text-books severely on account of their 
treatment of the seventh commandment. Well, the perusal of this portion is cer- 
tainly not an edifying task, and I am also of the opinion that the prescription and 



MEDIiEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 177 

Such a moral theology is, of course, a necessary conse- 
quence of the entire confessional and penitential system : 
it was necessary to furnish the father-confessor, who did not 
himself have the experience or the ability to settle such 
difficult matters, with the most careful possible instructions 
for his guidance. But it is undoubtedly well that the Prot- 
estant churches are relieved of this necessity by the abolition 
of the entire system. The individual confession is, of course, 
theoretically, the only real confession ; but the regular en- 
forcement of the individual confession was an awfully dan- 
gerous step. The power of the church over souls may have 
been strengthened by the practice and perhaps it also helped 
to establish external obedience and discipline ; but it is 
more than doubtful whether inner piety and conscientious- 
ness have been promoted by it. And one thing surely has not 
been promoted by the confessional — that is, man's truthful- 
ness to himself and to his God. 

Moreover, two things must not be forgotten here : first, 
that these moral books are not intended for the layman 
as text-books and books of devotion; their object is to 
give instructions to the father-confessor. Secondly, this 
morality does not formulate the ideal, but the minimum 
of what is demanded of every one on pain of punishment. 
The ideal to which the sermon constantly refers is the life 
of the saints. The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis 
describes it : a book of such simplicity and such deep knowl- 
edge of the heart, and withal of such plainness and vigor of 
speech, as have scarcely been equalled in any work of its kind ; 
there is genuine inner monachism in it, and monachism of 
that sort surely contains a large element of real Christianity. 

presumably also the practice of the confessional here enters upon a subject which 
had better not be discussed, for some agreement might surely be reached with- 
out such discussion. On the other hand, it must be said that those who have in 
charge the care of souls cannot ignore these things ; if medicine and jurisprudence 
are compelled to deal with them, moral theology and the confessional will have 
to look them square in the face. 



178 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

Moreover, that the type of true, inner monachism has not 
yet become extinct in the Catholic church the reader will 
learn from a book in which he may perhaps not look for it, 
in Kenan's Souvenirs de jeunesse. Renan was educated in 
theological seminaries ; he remembers the teachers and edu- 
cators of his youth with the deepest respect ; in four things, 
he says, they remained his models — in unselfishness and 
poverty, in modesty, in politeness, and in the preservation of 
morality. 

Besides, moral-theological works are not wanting in 
Catholic theology which conceive and present the Christian- 
moral life in a freer and deeper spirit. As such I mention 
J. M. Sailer's Handbook of Christian Morals 1 and J. B. 
Hirscher's Christian Morals. 2 

Within the Protestant churches, moral theology was over- 
shadowed by dogmatics and also lacked the logical con- 
sistency of an ecclesiastical system. Though it still followed 
the old scheme : lex divina and lex naturo?, the desire for a 
juristical treatment of the subject gradually diminished 
with the decline of church discipline. Moreover, the devel- 
opment of the Protestant principle of faith also led to a 
deeper conception of morality, but, of course, likewise tempted 
the new church to engage in theological speculations to the 
neglect of practical problems. On the other hand, owing to 
the absence of an external binding authority, Protestant 
moral theology entered into closer relations with philosophi- 
cal ethics ; since the middle of the last century, it has 
successively fallen under the influence of Wolff, Kant, and 
Speculative Philosophy. Schleiermacher, to whose system I 
shall return later on, betrays the influence of the latter. 
R. Rothe has constructed a very comprehensive theological 
ethics, 8 which is overburdened with an immense amount of 

1 Handbuch der christlichen Moral, 3 vols., 1817. 
* Die christliche Moral, 3 vols., 1835. 
8 Second edition, 1867-71, 5 vols. 



MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 179 

reading matter, upon Schleiermacher's principles. In addi- 
tion we may mention, Dorner, System of Christian Ethics 1 
and the work of the Danish bishop, Martensen, Christian 
Ethics? 

3. Modern moral philosophy . 

The following exposition, which expressly disclaims being 
a history of modern moral philosophy, simply desires to give 
a few typical examples of the chief modes of treatment of this 
subject in modern times. 3 

At the head of modern moral philosophy we may place 
Thomas Hobbes. 4 The fundamental idea upon which he 
bases his practical philosophy is the concept of self-preserva- 
tion. He thus returns to the Greek mode of treatment. 
Although he does not always emphasize the fact, he is uni- 
versally conscious of his opposition to the system of ethics 
which demands self-denial. 

It seems that Hobbes derived this conception of human 
conduct from the science in which his age was pre-eminently 
interested : from mechanical physics. Galileo had based 

1 System der christlichen Sittenlehre, 1885 [English translation, 1887]. 

2 [Fourth edition, 1888, 2 vols. (English translation in 3 vols., 1873-83). See 
also N. Smyth, Christian Ethics, New York, 1892.— Tr.] 

3 I refer the reader to Er. Jodl's History of Ethics in Modern Philosophy 
(Geschichte der Ethik in der neueren Philosophie), 2 vols., 1882-89, an admirable 
work which gives the first connected account of the history of modern moral 
philosophy. G. von Gizycki's work on the Ethics of David Hume (1878) is also 
valuable ; it contains, besides a detailed account of Hume, an outline of the 
entire development of moral philosophy in England. An elaborate and thorough 
exposition of the history of ethics and jurisprudence in the eighteenth and nine- 
teenth centuries, especially of the Speculative School in Germany, is given by J. H. 
Fichte in the first, historico-critical part of his System of Ethics (1850). [Consult 
the references on p. 35, note ; also Whewell, History of Moral Philosophy ; 
Vorlander, Geschichte der philosophischen Moral, Rechts- und Staatslehre; Mackin- 
tosh, On the Progress of Ethical Philosophy during the 17th and 18th Centuries; 
Stephen, English Thought of the Eighteenth Century ; Lecky, History of European 
Morals, chap. I. ; Guyau, La morale anglaise contemporaine ; Fouillee, Critique 
des systemes de morale contemporains ; Williams, A Review of Evolutionary Ethics. 
See also the histories of modern philosophy, especially Kuno Fischer's able work, 
and for bibliographies on particular authors, Ueberweg and Weber-Thilly. — Tr.] 

4 [For bibliography, see Weber, p. 301, note 1 ; also Tonnies, Hobbes' Leben 
und Lehre, and Snenth's Selections from Hobbes's ethical writings. — Tr.] 



180 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

modern physics upon the new fundamental law of the con« 
servation of motion. Hobbes expressly places himself by 
the side of Galileo, the founder of natural philosophy, as the 
founder of the philosophia civilis, the science of the state. 
He bases the latter upon the corresponding principle of ani- 
mal life : the law of self-preservation. Just as all physical 
processes are subject to the law of the conservation of motion, 
so all the processes in the living world are subject to the nat- 
ural law of self-preservation. Every living creature strives in 
everything that it does to preserve its life; it desires what 
furthers this and shrinks from what hinders it. However, its 
acts do not always make for preservation ; it constantly aims 
at the latter, but does not always hit the mark. This is es- 
pecially true in the case of man. Hence arises the antithesis 
between good and bad acts. Man always desires what is good 
for him, but not infrequently does what is bad and pernicious. 
The cause is a false opinion of what is good and bad. Good 
action is therefore identical with prudent action, and to do 
wrong is to act imprudently, or against " right reason." 

Hobbes did not construct a system of ethics upon this 
basis, but his politics rests upon it. 1 Man does not attain 
to what he strives after, that is, self-preservation, outside of 
society ; on the one hand, because his powers do not suffice 
to subject nature to his will, on the other, because individuals 
come in conflict with each other, and all therefore live in a 
state of continual insecurity. The natural state is a uni- 
versal state of war (helium omnium contra omnes). Since, in 
such a state, no one can obtain that which he desires, the 
preservation and perfection of individual life, right reason 
demands the organization of society ; its form is the state, 
which we may therefore designate as an institution for uni- 
versal self-preservation. In the status civilis are peace, security, 
wealth, welfare, in short, self-preservation. The state pre- 
supposes the absolute submission of the individuals to its 

* Dt cive, 1642 ; Leviathan. 1650. 



MEDIEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 181 

will which prescribes to them by means of laws what to do 
and what to refrain from doing. To act contrary to the law is 
of course wrong, for it is contrary to the necessary means of 
self-preservation, hence contrary to right reason. But this 
does not at all mean, as some have misinterpreted Hobbes, 
that good and bad are wholly synonymous with in accor- 
dance with, or contrary to, law. The laws of the state may 
themselves be good or bad, according as they promote or 
retard welfare and hence are in accordance with or contrary 
to right reason. The agent as such cannot, of course, judge 
of this, but the philosopher as such can. 

4. Spinoza 1 constructs a system of ethics upon this con- 
ception in the work, Ethica? which did not appear until after 
his death (1677). The starting-point of the truly ethical por- 
tion of the book is the sixth proposition of Part III : " Every- 
thing, in so far as it is in itself, strives to persist in its own 
being." This is true of the body as well as of the soul. Now, 
the essence of the mind consists in ideation. But ideas differ 
from each other ; we have active and passive ideation ; the 
former is scientific thinking, the latter, sensation and feeling, 
— the former gives us adequate, the latter, fragmentary and 
confused ideas, that is, ideas of which the causes do not, or do 
not wholly, lie within the soul itself, but in the things outside 
of it. Self-preservation is, therefore, for the mind, activity 
in scientific thinking ; self-denial and weakness, the suffering 
of things in sensation and feeling ; the former represents the 
freedom, the latter, the bondage of man. Hence, in so far as 
the soul is really master of itself, in so far as its striving is 
guided by the proper insight into that which agrees with its 
essence, it strives to preserve itself in pure thought, and to 
remove everything that is contrary to it. And so we are 
brought back again to the old proposition of Greek ethics : 
Philosophy, or scientific knowledge, is the function of life and 
the highest good. 

1 [For bibliography, see Weber-Thilly, 323, note l.J 
3 [Translations by White and Fnllerton.] 



182 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

Spinoza shows the twofold value of knowledge : it is, on the 
one hand, the highest, freest, most perfect activity of life, 
the absolute end in itself ; on the other hand, it is a means 
of freeing us from the bondage to which the irrational man 
is subjected by his affections. 

The fourth book of the Ethics regards reason as the means 
of self-preservation. There are two great sciences, physics 
and psychology, corresponding to the two phases of reality, 
the world of bodies and the world of ideas (res — idece). 
Physics forms the basis of two practical sciences, mechanics 
and medicine ; psychology (or the science of mind), the basis 
of ethics and politics. With these four practical sciences 
reason regulates life. Spinoza discusses the two latter. 

Ethics is the knowledge of the proper behavior of the 
individual in reference to himself and to other individuals. 
Animals and, as a matter of fact, most men, are determined 
in their action by feelings ; anger incites them to requite 
injury with injury, compassion impels them to assist those in 
need, and so forth. The wise man, on the other hand, lives 
according to reason (ex ductu rationis) ; he alone realizes the 
end of self-preservation, while those governed by their feelings 
often miss it: the desire for revenge, ambition, avarice, 
the love of enjoyment, — whatever their names may be, — 
frequently lead to ruin. He, however, who is governed by 
reason knows the value and the measure of things, in what 
respects they are wholesome, in what harmful. He sees that 
the requiting of evil with evil gives rise to lasting enmity, 
causing mutual insecurity, distrust, nay even destruction, 
while hatred can be overcome, and love and friendship 
produced by calmness and kindness. 

Likewise basing itself upon the knowledge of human 
nature, the science of politics shows how collective life must 
be fashioned in ordei that not war and insecurity, but peace 
and benevolence may be the result, and that all may co-operate 
to preserve and promote life. 



MEDIEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 183 

Knowledge, finally, accomplishes something else: it produces 
peace of mind ; it leads to the conviction that everything that 
happens follows by eternal necessity from the nature of things. 
The fruit of this conviction is tranquilitas animi. We cease to 
struggle against that the necessity of which we understand ; 
that is unbearable which seems to happen contrary to fate 
and justice: how men would rebel against death, if not 
all, but only a few had to die ! Above all, knowledge makes us 
tolerant in our judgment of men ; it is men's nature to be what 
they are, vacillating, ungrateful, vain, revengeful, a frail race ; 
the philosopher knows that their conduct is the result of their 
nature, the weakness of reason and the strength of the feelings ; 
and to understand everything means to forgive everything. 
Hence, true knowledge is the means of the preservation and 
the perfection of life. 

Knowledge is at the same time, so the end of the fifth book 
declares, life's highest and most valuable content. Knowledge 
is, as distinguished from feeling, self-activity ; to become aware 
of one's power and independence arouses joy ; the knowledge 
of the highest in the highest form, the knowledge of God or 
nature, the sum total of reality or perfection, produces the 
highest joy. From joy arises the love of God {amor Dei in- 
tellectualis'), who in knowledge fills the soul with blessedness. 
Thus closes with a religious turn the ethics of Spinoza. 

The union of knowledge, love of God, and blessedness, the 
beginning and end of all his reflections, is evidently the result 
of the philosopher's personal experiences. He excluded him- 
self and was excluded from the community of faith into which he 
was born ; he excluded himself and was excluded from practical 
life and public activity ; he excluded himself and was excluded 
from the competition for reputation and literary fame, and 
withdrew entirely to the world of his thoughts where he found 
peace, rest, and happiness. His system of ethics is the result 
of these conditions. At the beginning of the Tractatus de 
intellects emendations he himself declares : " After experi- 



184 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

ence had taught me that all the usual surroundings of social 
life are vain and futile ; seeing that none of the objects of my 
fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, ex- 
cept in so far as the mind is affected by them, I finally resolved 
to inquire whether there might be some real good having power 
to communicate itself, which would affect the mind singly, to 
the exclusion of all else : whether, in fact, there might be any- 
thing of which the discovery and attainment would enable me 
to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness. I say 
' I finally resolved,' for at first sight it seemed unwise will- 
ingly to lose hold on what was sure, for the sake of something 
then uncertain. I could see the benefits which are acquired 
through fame and riches, and that I should be obliged to 
abandon the quest of such objects, if I seriously devoted my- 
self to the search for something different and new. ... I 
therefore debated whether it would not be possible to arrive 
at the new principle, or, at any rate, at a certainty concerning 
its existence, without changing the conduct and usual plan of 
my life ; with this end in view I made many efforts, but in 
vain. For the ordinary surroundings of life which are 
esteemed by men (as their actions testify) to be the highest 
good, may be classed under the three heads — Biches, Fame, 
and the Pleasures of Sense : with these three the mind is so 
absorbed that it has little power to reflect on any different 
good." The quest for the highest good, therefore, could not 
be reconciled with these things. "However, after I had 
reflected on the matter, I came in the first place to the con- 
clusion that these things were not, as I originally believed, 
certain, but rather very uncertain goods ; nay I finally saw that 
they would have to be regarded as certain evils, for they are 
not only not means of preserving our being, but even act as 
hindrances, causing the death not seldom of those that 
possess them, and always of those who are possessed by them. 
— All these evils seem to have arisen from the fact, that hap- 
piness or unhappiness is made wholly to depend on the quality 



MEDIEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 185 

of the object which we love. When a thing is not loved, no 
quarrels will arise concerning it — no sadness will be felt if it 
perishes, no fear, no hatred ; in short, no disturbance of the 
mind. All these arise from the love of what is perishable, 
such as the objects already mentioned. But love towards 
a thing eternal and infinite fills the mind wholly with 
joy, and is itself unmingled with any sadness, wherefore 
it is greatly to be desired and sought for with all our 
strength." J 

5. This ethical philosophy was essentially supplemented 
and developed by Lord Shaftesbury. 2 He gives the ethics of 
self-preservation a broader anthropological foundation, by 
abandoning the rigid individualistic egoism of Hobbes and 
Spinoza, and thus bases virtue upon impulses and feelings, 
whereas the former seem to base it solely upon reason and 
calculation. His fundamental conceptions, the beginnings of 
which we find in many other contemporary English moralists, 
especially in Cumberland, 3 the most important among the 
opponents of Hobbes, are about as follows. I am, in the 
main, following the Inquiry concerning Virtue and Merit, 1699, 
contained in the second volume of the Characteristics.^ 

We may accept the proposition that every being strives to 
preserve itself, but must add : What we call an individual is 
not an independent being aiming solely at its own preserva- 
tion ; the species alone is independent in the full sense of the 
term, — the individual is related to it as a member to its organ. 
This is the case, considered from the purely biological point 
of view : the individual owes its nature and existence to the 
species ; by reproducing itself it serves as an organ for the 
preservation of the species. 

1 [Translation in Bonn's Library.] 

2 [See Gizycki, Die Philosophie Shaftesbury's ; Fowler, Shaftesbury and Hutche- 
ton ; Albee, Shaftesbury and Hulcheson (Phil. Review, vol. V.). — Tr.] 

3 [De legibus natures, 1672 (Engl, transl. by J. Maxwell, 1727). See Ernest 
Albee, The Ethical System of Richard Cumberland {Phil. Review, vol. IV.).— Tk.] 

* [Edited by W. Hatch, 3 vols., 1869. — Tk.] 



186 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

This highly important fact, which Hobbes and Spinoza 
absolutely ignored, is also noticeable in the soul-life of the 
human individual. His self-preservative impulse does not 
aim exclusively at the preservation of his own life, but just 
as directly at the preservation of the species. Shaftesbury 
expresses this truth as follows : two kinds of impulses may 
be distinguished in man: individualistic and social; he calls 
the former private, selfish affections, the latter, natural, kind, 
social affections ; by his successor, Hutcheson, 1 the latter are 
also more appropriately termed sympathetic affections. The 
goal to which the selfish affections impel man is his own 
individual welfare (private good) ; the goal to which the 
social affections impel him is the common welfare, the preser- 
vation of the system of which the individual forms a part 
{public good). Both impulses are equally original, both 
equally rooted in nature ; it is by no means possible to derive 
the social impulses from the individualistic impulse of self- 
preservation, say by the round-about way of prudence. Even 
in animal life the impulse which serves the preservation of 
the species in the reproduction and care of offspring, is as 
strong and original as the individualistic, self-preservative 
impulse, and uniformly asserts itself at the expense of self- 
preservation. 

In man as a rational being a third form is added to these 
two primitive motives of the will ; which Shaftesbury calls 
reflex, rational affections; they are the feelings which are 
produced by reflection on human actions. Just as the con- 
templation of works of art produces feelings of disinterested 
pleasure and displeasure, so the contemplation of human acts 
and qualities arouses feelings of approval and disapproval 
in the spectator, and he accordingly designates them as good 
or bad, just as he calls the former beautiful or ugly. We may 
regard a moral sense as the source of the latter, as we regard 

1 [Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, 1723 ; Philosophia 
moralis institutis, 1745 ; A System of Moral Philosophy, 1755. — Tb.J 



MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 187 

an aesthetic sense as the source of the former. The qualifying 
judgment is first pronounced upon the conduct of others, but 
it is also pronounced upon the agent's own conduct, and is 
then called conscience. — These feelings, too, impel the will 
to action, directing it towards the general welfare, which in- 
cludes individual welfare ; such acts are disapproved as tend 
to produce disturbances in the life of others and in the life 
of the agent himself. 

That is the result of the psychological analysis, or, as 
Shaftesbury himself once said, of the anatomy of the soul. 
The latter is the foundation of ethics, as the anatomy and 
physiology of the body are the foundation of dietetics. 

Now in what does the health or perfection of soul-life 
consist? Precisely in what the health of bodily life con- 
sists. The latter consists in the harmonious co-operation 
of all the organs, the former in the harmonious co-opera- 
tion of the well-regulated impulses, in the regulated econ- 
omy of the selfish and social affections, as Shaftesbury once 
expressed it. There are no impulses which are bad in them- 
selves, — how could they have come into this God-created 
nature ? The selfish impulses, too, are good as such, they 
are indispensable to the preservation of living creatures; 
they become bad through one-sided, excessive development. 
The impulse to acquire wealth is good and necessary in 
itself; only when as avarice it becomes the predominating 
motive, and dwarfs the other impulses, does it become bad 
Compassion is good in itself : if, however — which, of course, 
does not frequently happen — it should gain such control 
over man as to prevent him from thinking of his duties, 
all on account of his pity and sympathy for the distress 
of others, it would ruin his life and soon render him in- 
capable of assisting others. Hence a soul has health or 
natural perfection, in which the selfish impulses are strong 
enough to urge the individual to perform all the functions 
essential to self-preservation, and in which the social impulses 



188 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

are sufficiently powerful to arouse the proper regard for the 
universal welfare. 

In order to attain to true moral excellence (virtue), it 
is necessary to fashion the moral sense into a strong regu- 
lative principle. When conscience (the sense of right and 
wrong) secures conduct against the fluctuations of inclina- 
tion which occur even in a good nature, then we call a man 
morally good or virtuous. We shall, therefore, also call a 
man virtuous who is endowed with an unruly temperament, 
say with strong selfish impulses, when he governs his nature 
according to principles ; and the greater the resistance, the 
more virtuous we shall consider him. 

The similarity as well as the difference between these con- 
ceptions and those of Hobbes may be easily seen. We have 
the same fundamental idea: that is good which makes for 
self-preservation ; but it is the self-preservation, not of the 
isolated individual, but of the species or society and within it 
of the individual, at which the will actually aims, and by 
which its objective value is measured. Shaftesbury is fond 
of emphasizing his opposition to Hobbes ; it is an opposition 
based not merely on principles, but likewise on personal feel- 
ings and judgments. Shaftesbury is an optimist, Hobbes a 
pessimist, in his judgment of men. The latter likes to look 
at the ferocious, the former at the lovable and benevolent 
sides of human nature. He is fond of emphasizing the fact 
that there is for man, according to the experience of every 
one, no greater and purer happiness than to contribute to 
the happiness of others. Hence the social virtues are a direct 
source of happiness to those who possess them. And the 
lack of them is just as certain to make men unhappy ; there 
could be no greater misfortune for a man than to live abso- 
lutely alone, without friends, without giving and receiving 
sympathy. Hence all feelings and qualities which tend to 
lead to such a state — anger, hatred, envy, coldness, selfish- 
ness — are suited to make their possessor unhappy. And 



MEDLEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 189 

therefore, so he concludes his Inquiry on Virtue, virtue is the 
good, and vice the evil for every one. 

In Shaftesbury we already meet that amiable optimism 
which forms such a prominent trait of eighteenth century 
philosophy : God is good ; the world is good ; man is good ; — 
his nature is not so unfortunately constructed that the phases 
essential to his happiness must first be artificially introduced 
by way of deliberation and calculation, as Hobbes main- 
tains. The only thing to do is to assist his real nature in 
overcoming all kinds of obstacles and perversions. It is this 
credulous optimism which Mandeville so keenly criticises 
in his Fable of the Bees, 1 a little satire of great force, to 
which a long commentary of little value was afterwards 
added. 

Modern moral philosophy reached its first climax in Shaftes- 
bury ; none of the essential elements is wanting in his system. 
It is the fundamental conception of ancient ethics enlarged 
and enriched by the Christian mode of feeling and looking 
at things. The social virtues and conscience have found 
their appropriate place by the side of the individualistic ex- 
cellences. The eighteenth century esteemed Shaftesbury very 
highly ; Herder recommended to his son the Inquiry on 
Virtue as the most complete and best system of morals. 
Georg von Gizycki's opinion is : " Shaftesbury's system is 
the chief system of English ethics, for all later systems 
have, in reality, merely supplemented and developed his in 
particular respects, without, however, ever attaining to its 
great universality." 2 

6. Hume's Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals 3 
(1751) is conspicuous not so much for the originality and 
depth of its thoughts as for the clear, subtle, convincing pre- 

1 [ The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices made Public Benefits, 1714.] 

2 Hume's Ethics, p. 17. 

8 [Edited by Selby-Bigge. See also Green's edition of Hume's works. Selec- 
tions from Hume's ethical writings by Hyslop. Bibliography in Weber, p. 417, 
note. - Tr.] 



190 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

sentation of the fundamental theory of English moral phil- 
osophy just set forth. Hume's question is : Why are certain 
characters and actions pronounced amiable or odious, praise- 
worthy or blamable ? He finds, after taking up the most 
important ones : Such qualities are praised as are useful or 
immediately agreeable to others or ourselves ; their opposites 
are censured. 

Hume's treatment of ethics already shows an inclination 
to neglect the biological for the purely subjective view, and 
accordingly to substitute satisfaction for preservation, a sub- 
jective standard of value for the objective one. But this 
tendency becomes still more pronounced later on, under the 
influence of one-sided psychological theories, and reaches 
its climax in J. Bentham, who declares : Pleasure is in 
itself a good, nay the only good ; pain is in itself an evil, the 
only evil. Everything else is good only in so far as it conduces 
to pleasure. Pleasure differs only in intensity, duration, cer- 
tainty, propinquity, fertility, purity, and extent, that is, the 
number of persons to whom it extends, or who are affected 
by it. The absolute goal and the absolute standard of all 
values is, therefore, the greatest happiness of the greatest 
number. However, Bentham owes his importance not so 
much to his work in theoretical ethics as to his political and 
legislative reforms ; the penal law, especially, engaged his 
attention. The principles are discussed in the work : Intro- 
duction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, 1789. 1 

James Mill is closely and also personally related to Ben- 
tham. He deserves mention in the history of moral philoso- 
phy on account of his acute application of the psychology of 
association to the explanation of moral phenomena. 2 The will 
of every creature primarily aims at the attainment of pleasure 
and the freedom from pain. Gradually, however, things 
which were originally desired merely as means come to be 

1 Also found in the first volume of the works, edited hy J. Bowring, 1843. 
* Analysis of the Phenomena of Human Mind, 2 vols., 1829. 



MEDIZEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 191 

directly desired through association. Avarice furnishes the 
classical example. Money is originally valued as a means, 
but for the miser it has become an end in itself, the idea of 
possible pleasure which it procures has become so firmly 
associated with the money that he will forgo every pleasure 
rather than part with a fraction of his gold. In the same 
way certain modes of conduct receive absolute value. Praise 
and admiration arouse feelings of pleasure ; gradually by 
association we love the modes of conduct themselves which 
are praised, the desire for praise is transformed into the 
desire for the praiseworthy ; and at last we adhere to what is 
praiseworthy, even when the praise is not forthcoming, nay 
when it is threatened with obloquy and danger. Self-sacri- 
fice is explained in the same way, only here we have, in addi- 
tion to the love of honor, also sympathetic emotions which 
are likewise explained by processes of association. — These 
statements are not without an element of truth ; but they 
share the errors common to the entire psychological view 
from which they have been derived : they regard the indi- 
vidual as an absolutely independent being and consequently 
his relation to the species as accidental and secondary, while 
on the other hand, they make pleasure the starting-point, in- 
stead of impulse or will, which is prior to pleasure and not 
first produced by it. But to this subject we shall recur 
later on. 

John Stuart Mill, 1 the son of James Mill , has given us 
in his treatise on Utilitarianism (1863) a brief but compre- 
hensive exposition of the principles on which this system of 
ethics is based. It was he also who gave the school the name 
by which it is generally known in England, Utilitarianism. 
Moreover, for Mill as for Bentham, the principle of utility was 
the guiding principle of political and social reforms. And 
it must also be mentioned that Mill was greatly influenced 
by Comte; he has explained his relation to the French 

1 [For bibliography see Weber-Thilly, p. 581, note 2. — TrJ 



192 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

philosopher in the admirable monograph : Auguste Comte and 
Positivism} 

Besides utilitarianism there is another school of English 
moral philosophy, which is usually called intuitionalism. 
The former explains the distinctions in value between 
human modes of conduct by their effects, while for the latter 
good and bad are absolute qualities of human acts, which 
cannot be explained, but can only be immediately perceived 
and determined. Cudworth 2 and Clarke 3 advocate this theory 
against Hobbes, Whewell 4 against Mill. I shall consider the 
truth and falsity of this view later on. 

Moral philosophy has received a new impetus from the 
most recent development of the biological sciences. The 
theory of evolution carries us beyond the superficial reflec- 
tions of analytical psychology to the biological-historical 
conception : the preservation and development of life is the 
goal at which the will aims, not pleasure or the feeling of 
satisfaction. It likewise shows the insufficiency of the rigid 
individualism of the older psychology : morality represents 
the experiences of the race, not the experience of the individ- 
ual, with respect to what is good and bad, beneficial and 
harmful. Charles Darwin 5 has made an attempt at moral 
philosophy in the fourth chapter of The Descent of Man, 

1 Volume IX. of the collected works. [Other adherents of this school are : A. 
Bain, Mental and Moral Science, 1868; A. Barratt, Physical Ethics, 1869; 
Hodgson, Theory of Practice, 1870; Fowler, Progressive Morality, 1884; Fowler 
and Wilson, Principles of Morals, 1886-1887. — William Paley, The Principles of 
Moral and Political Philosophy, 1785, is a theological utilitarian: "Virtue is the 
doing good to mankind, in ohedience to the law of God, and for the sake of 
eternal happiness." — Tr.] 

2 [Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, 1688. — Tr.] 

8 [Discourse concerning the Unalterable Obligations of Natural Religion, 1708. 

— Tr.] 

* [Elements of Morality, 1848 ; last edition, 1864. To the same school helong 
alsoH. Calderwood, H andbook of Moral Philosophy, 1872; 14th edition, 1890; Mar- 
tineau, Types of Ethical Theory, 1885 ; Porter, Elements of Moral Science, 1885. 

— Tr.] 

6 [For an exposition and criticism of Darwin's ethical view, see Schurman, The 
Ethical Import of Darwinism. See also in this connection, Huxley, Evolution and 
Ethics, 1893.— Tr.] 



MEDLEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 193 

Herbert Spencer gives a systematic exposition of the evolu- 
tionistic view in his Principles of Ethics. Henry Sidgwick 
{The Methods of Ethics, fourth edition, 1890), Leslie Stephen 
(The Science of Ethics, 1882), and S. Alexander (Moral Order 
and Progress, 1889) have also been influenced by this theory. 
T. H. Green (The Prolegomena to Ethics, 1883) and J. Macken- 
zie (Manual of Ethics, 1891, second edition, 1895) approxi- 
mate the Kantian view. 1 

7. The new philosophy was introduced into Germany by 
Leibniz, and formulated into a system by Wolff. It obtained 
the mastery in German science and culture in the course of 
the eighteenth century, driving out and supplanting scholas- 
tic philosophy, which, in the form which it had received from 
Melanchthon, became the prevailing system in the German 
universities after the days of Humanism and the Reformation. 
Wolff's entire philosophy is characterized by its opposition 
to the scholastic-theological treatment of things ; this antag- 
onism is already indicated by the title which he gives his 
first works on philosophical subjects ; he calls them Rational 
Thoughts, a name by which he defies the entire past. The 
same spirit manifests itself in his ethics, the first systematic 
edition of which was published under the title, Rational 
Thoughts on the Actions of Men for the Promotion of their 
Happiness 2 (1720). At the very beginning, the fundamental 
concept of modern philosophy, the concept of self-preservation, 
is introduced in a somewhat modified form as self-perfection, 
and the definition given : That is good " which makes our inner 
as well as our outer state perfect ; " the opposite is bad. And 
emphatically rejecting a theological substructure for morals, 
he adds : " Inasmuch as the free acts of men are good and bad 

1 [With these two may also be classed ; Bradley, Ethical Studies, 1876 ; Dewey, 
Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics, 1891; Muirhead, Elements of Ethics, 1892, 
second edition, 1895 ; J. Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, 1896. B. P. Bowne, 
Principles of Ethics, 1893, is a follower of Lotze. — Tk.] 

2 Verniinftige Gedanken von der Menschen Thun und Lassen zur Befb'rderung 
ihrer Glilckseligkeit. 



194 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

because of their effects, and what follows from them must 
necessarily follow and cannot fail, they are good or bad in and 
for themselves, and are not first made so by the will of God." 
In § 12 the most general formula of duty is then stated : 
" Do that which makes you and your state and that of 
others more perfect, refrain from that which makes it more 
imperfect ; " and in § 21 follows the very objectionable state- 
ment that an atheist, if only he is not foolish, and clearly 
understands the nature of free acts, can easily be a virtuous 
man. — A system of duties is then deduced from the above 
formula in more than a thousand paragraphs. 

8. The reign of Wolffian philosophy lasted till about the 
end of the eighteenth century. Its place was taken by the 
philosophy of I. Kant. 1 He presents his system of mo- 
rality in the Foundation of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) 
and in the Critique of Practical Reason ( 1 78 8) , 2 which was 
followed, at the beginning of his old age, by the Metaphysics 
of Morals (1797). 

Kant's place in the history of ethics may be determined by 
a comparison with the English intuitionists : his ethics is a 
reaction against utilitarian eudsemonism, in which Wolff and 
Hume, the rationalistic and empiristical schools, concurred. 
Kant himself was at first an eudaemonist ; as late as the 
year 1765 he spoke of Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and Hume 
as authors who had made the greatest progress in the dis- 
covery of the first principles of morality, and to whose inves- 
tigations he would give the necessary precision and supple- 
mentation in his lectures ; and he expressly promised to base 
morality upon anthropology. Just as- his critical theory of 
knowledge was a reaction against his own empiricism, which 
had almost carried him to Hume's standpoint, so his critical 
ethics was a reaction against his own empirical eudaemon- 

1 [Cohen, Kant's Begriindung der Ethik ; Zeller, Uber das Kantische Moralprin* 
dp ; Schurman, Kantian Ethics and the Ethics of Evolution ; Porter, Kant's Ethics ; 
Forster, Der Entwicklungsgang der Kantischen Ethik ; Paulsen, Kant. — Tr.J 

8 [See the translation of Abbott, fourth edition, London, 1889. — Tr.j 



MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 195 

ism. The complete similarity of treatment in the moral- 
philosophical and epistemological problems, which by the 
way proved fatal to Kant's ethical writings, cannot leave us 
in doubt about this matter. 

The fundamental conceptions are as follows. — Chief among 
them is the principle, which repudiates all eudaemonism or 
utilitarianism, that the moral worth of acts is absolutely in- 
dependent of their effects, that it is determined solely by the 
disposition. " Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world 
or even out of it, which can be called good without qualifica- 
tion, except a good will." " A good will is good not because 
of what it performs or effects, not by its aptness for the 
attainment of some proposed end, but simply by virtue of 
the volition ; that is, it is good in itself." With these propo- 
sitions Kant begins his first ethical work, which we men- 
tioned above. 

But what will is good ? Kant answers : A will is good 
when it is determined not by a material purpose, but solely 
by respect for duty : " the pre-eminent good which we call 
moral can therefore consist in nothing else than the concep- 
tion of law in itself, which certainly is only possible in a 
rational being, in so far as this conception, and not the ex- 
pected effect, determines the will." 

And what is duty ? What does the moral law command ? 
— It commands, stated in the most general formula : " So act 
that the maxim of the act may conform to universal law." 
That is, if the realm of human conduct or freedom were 
governed by universal laws, like the realm of nature or 
causality, then this maxim would have to be regarded as one 
of these laws. An example will make the matter clear. A 
man finds himself forced by necessity to borrow money. 
He knows that he will not be able to repay it, but sees also 
that nothing will be lent to him, unless he promises stoutly 
to repay it in a definite time. Is it lawful for him to make 
the promise ? He can tell at once ; all he has to do is to ask 



196 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

himself the question : What would be the maxim of this action 
expressed as a universal law ? Somewhat as follows : When 
a man is in want of money and cannot obtain it except by 
making a promise which he knows to be false, he may do so. 
Then he asks himself the question : Is this maxim suited to 
be a natural law in the domain of human action ? He will 
at once see that it could never hold as a universal law 
of nature, but would necessarily contradict itself. For sup- 
posing it to be a universal law that every one when he 
thinks himself in a difficulty should be able to promise what- 
ever he pleases, with the purpose of not keeping his promise, 
the promise itself would become impossible, as well as the 
end that one might have in view in it, since no one would 
believe that anything was promised to him, but would 
ridicule all such statements as vain pretences. Hence 
falsehood can only occur as an exception, not as a rule or 
law of nature : if it were a law of nature that every one 
could, every time it were to his advantage, tell a falsehood, 
then no one would believe any one else, and lying would 
defeat itself. The same may be said of theft: if it were a 
law of nature for every one to take what he liked, there would 
be no property, and theft would, if it became universal, de- 
stroy both itself and property. 

Basing himself upon this process of logical generalization 
as the criterion, Kant next attempts to determine particular 
duties, or rather to show that they are included in the formula. 
It has often been pointed out that he accomplishes his pur- 
pose only by the most violent method of procedure, — in spite 
of the fact that he afterward makes the principle somewhat 
more elastic : Act so that thou canst will as a rational creature 
that thy maxim become a universal law of nature for conduct. 
By means of barren and often sophistical arguments he finally 
succeeds in bringing all the customary moral laws, including 
the duty to strive for the perfection of self and the happiness 
of others, under the formula. — His undertaking would have 



MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 197 

proved more successful had he changed the formula as follows; 
The moral laws are rules which are adapted to a natural legis- 
lation of human life, that is, rules which, if they governed 
conduct as natural laws, would lead to the preservation and 
perfection of human life. And in a certain sense this is 
Kant's meaning. In the Critique of Practical Reason the 
notion of a " kingdom of ends" is introduced by the side of 
the kingdom of natural causality ; all rational creatures are 
to be regarded as members of this kingdom of ends and the 
moral laws as its laws of nature. These are Leibnizian 
notions : the kingdom of nature is governed by physical- 
mechanical laws, the kingdom of grace by teleological-ethical 
laws. Had Kant made these notions the cornerstones of his 
system, his ethics would have been more fruitful. 

After all, ethics has not a very serious function to perform, 
according to Kant. It is not its business to prescribe what 
ought to be done, for every one knows in every case, without 
all science, what duty is. Nor must it give reasons for 
duties ; there is absolutely no reason why we should act thus 
or so ; the commands are categorical, not hypothetical ; if 
there were a reason for them, they would be conditionally 
true. All that ethics has to do is to collect the commands of 
duty, to arrange them, and to embrace them under a univer- 
sal formula. When a reviewer censured Kant for not set- 
ting up a new principle, but only a new formula, the latter 
did not regard this as a fault : " Who," he says in his preface 
to the Critique of Practical Reason, " would think of intro- 
ducing a new principle of all morality, just as if the whole 
world before him were ignorant what duty was ? But who- 
ever knows of what importance to a mathematician a formula 
is, will not make little of the value of my moral formula." 
Only, Kant should have compared his formula with the max- 
ims of the jurists, for the moral formula by no means accom- 
plishes what, according to the statements in the preface, the 
mathematician's formula accomplishes, which defines accur- 
ately what is to be done to work a problem. 



198 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

How did Kant reach this formalistic view ? In the first 
place, he was undoubtedly influenced by the analogy of 
a-prioristic rationalism in his theory of knowledge. The 
schema of natural philosophy — that the reason prescribes 
laws to nature, which possess absolute universality, regardless 
of the matter of sense-perception — is carried over into moral 
philosophy : the practical reason prescribes laws to the will 
which possess absolute universality, regardless of the matter 
of sensuous desire. — But we may, perhaps, also discover 
material reasons, reasons based on feeling, which had some- 
thing to do with his view. Two facts may be mentioned, one 
positive, the other negative ; the former, the degeneration of 
eudaemonism into a weakly sentimental praise of virtue; 
the latter, the influence of Rousseau. 

One of the numerous moral periodicals of the preceding 
century — it had been published in Leipsic since 1745 under 
the title, Ergetzungen der verniinftigen Seele aus der Sit- 
tenlehre und der Gelehrsamkeit ilberJiaupt — contained in its 
fifth volume, which was dedicated to the Prime Chancellor 
Cocceji, an essay entitled : Proof that the Virtues are Pleasant 
and Charming. In this we read : " Proper satisfaction with 
one's self is the greatest happiness which a thinking being can 
procure. Unless a man be a monster, he will feel how 
charming is a virtuous deed which springs from love of 
humanity ; I at least have so tender a soul that I do not 
possess the power to suppress my feelings even when I 
resolve not to give way to them. When I read books which 
vividly describe a virtuous act inspired by the love of human- 
ity, my soul is often carried away by such emotions, against 
its will." The author gives examples from Marianne of 
Marivaux, and then continues : " If the narrow space at our 
command permitted us to consider the particular virtues in 
detail, we should find how pleasant and charming each one is. 
How charming is affability ! Nothing is more pleasant than 
humility," etc. In the same way it is shown that the vices 



MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 199 

are ridiculous, unpleasant, troublesome, and detestable. In 
conclusion, the author asks the clergy to exhort their congrega- 
tions to perform virtuous acts by showing how charming they 
are, and anticipates great results from such a method. 

These are the thoughts of English moral philosophy in 
tasteless popular form. Moreover, even Hutcheson, in his 
elaborate text-book, a German translation of which appeared in 
1756 under the title, System der Moralphilosophie, often mani- 
fests an alarming tendency to speak in this strain ; he, too, 
has much to say of the pleasure of being happy. And so 
Gellert hopes, in his lectures on moral philosophy, as the 
introductory lecture declares, to be able to assist his hearers 
in realizing virtue, that is, their highest welfare. " Would 
that I might feel this zeal keenly as often as I appear before 
7 ou, and would that it might make me eloquent in represent- 
ing to you the duties of morality as the most charming and 
most sacred laws of our welfare." 1 

Let us suppose that Kant read the aforesaid essay in the 
Ergetzungen der vernilnftigen Seele, or a similar one. In that 
case we can readily understand his emphatic repudiation of 
those who desired to serve as " volunteers of duty," and his 
sharp accentuation of the opposition between the moral law 
and the inclinations. A passage like the celebrated apos- 
trophe to duty — " Duty, thou sublime and mighty name that 
dost embrace nothing charming or insinuating, but requirest 
submission, what origin is there worthy of thee, and where 
is there to be found the root of thy noble descent which 
proudly rejects all kindred with the inclinations?" — such a 
passage sounds like an answer to that sentimental praise 
of the charms of virtue which Kant could not but regard as 
a repulsive prostitution. — And this is surely a merit of 
Kant's which ought not to be underestimated. He revived in 
the hearts of the moral preachers the strong consciousness 
of the law of duty, which they had almost lost by their 

1 Collected Works, 1770, vol. VI., p. 3. 



200 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

efforts to allure and to charm, and thereby rendered a ser- 
vice, not to the science of ethics, it is true, but towards the 
education of his people. 

The second impetus was positive in character; it came 
from Rousseau. It is well known in what high esteem the 
latter was held by Kant. What attracted Kant to Rousseau ? 
He himself tells us in a passage that reads like a note from 
a diary : " I am myself an investigator from inclination. I 
feel the intensest craving for knowledge, and the eager im- 
patience to make some progress in it, as well as satisfaction 
with every step in advance. There was a time when I 
believed that all this might redound to the honor of mankind, 
and I despised the rabble which knew nothing. Rousseau 
has set me right. This boasted superiority has vanished ; I 
am learning to respect mankind, and I should regard myself 
as much more useless than the common laborers, did I not 
believe that this reflection [occupation ?] could give a value to 
all other occupations [namely scientific-literary works,] that is, 
re-establish the rights of humanity" To re-establish the rights 
of mankind, then, of the common people — this he regards as his 
true mission and his work. The worth of a man depends on his 
willy not on his knowledge, as aristocratic and self -conceited cul- 
ture believes ; — that is the cardinal doctrine upon which Kant's 
entire philosophy really turns. And here Rousseau helped 
him ; he taught him — and for this he was thankful — not to 
overestimate culture, science, in short, civilization ; he showed 
him that goodness of heart and purity of thought were not 
confined to the most educated and most aristocratic, that 
simple and strong dutifulness might be found just as often, 
perhaps oftener, among the lowliest. Kant is following 
Rousseau when he speaks " of the masses who are worthy of 
our respect. ,, In this way alone his scientific activity, which 
he had formerly regarded as possessing absolute worth, re- 
ceived its true value in his eyes : he could preach this great 
truth and thus assist in establishing the rights of mankind, 



MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 201 

the rights of the masses, who are commonly despised as the 
rabble, on account of their lack of education. And here we are 
also reminded of the fact that Kant himself once belonged to 
these masses by birth, however far he may have risen above 
them ; his parents were small tradespeople, without educa- 
tion; but his father was a true and upright man, and his 
mother a woman full of practical piety. Kant's democratic 
views — not his political creed, but his love of the people — 
were evidently rooted in the memories of his youth and the 
admiration which he felt for his parents. 

With all this his opposition to eudaemonistic morality had 
something to do. It is the latter which gives rise to those 
false standards, when for instance, as in Wolff's system, it 
sets up self-perfection as the absolute goal. According to 
Wolff, a man's worth depends upon his perfection, upon his 
culture, learning, and taste. This view, which by the way 
was not peculiar to the eighteenth century, but is presumably 
more common in our days than at any former time — for 
when has education counted for so much as at present? — 
his view, which Kant had once accepted as a follower of 
Wolffian ethics, now alienated him from all eudasmonism 
and carried him to the other extreme : nothing in this world 
is good except the good will alone. 

To have emphasized this was also a great merit of Kant's, 
not so much, however, a merit of the moral philosopher as of 
the moral preacher. It was the renewal of the great truth of 
Christianity, that before God man is judged not for what he 
has, but for what he is : a truth which every one should make 
it his daily task to learn. 

9. The revolution in moral philosophy caused by Kant 
coincided with a change in the German conception of life. 
The ideal of the illumination — utility for society — was 
superseded by the ideal of Goethe's age, perfection of the 
personality. In classical poetry, especially in the poetry of 
Goethe, this ideal was everywhere at work as the goal and the 



•202 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

standard. Here, too, Rousseau's influence was felt. The in- 
dividual shall not be the slave of conventional circumstances 
and views, his education shall not, as is now actually the 
case, consist in training him for the role which he has to play 
in society ; the natural capacities must be developed from 
within and freely exercised according to the needs of the indi- 
viduality — that was the gist of the sermon which Rousseau, 
especially in the Bmile, preached to his contemporaries with 
such passionate force. Goethe, too, and Herder and Schiller 
and all of the strongest and freest minds gave heed to his 
warning. Another sermon was preached, that of Greek 
antiquity ; neo-Humanism, as opposed to the older classicism, 
also called the age back to freedom and to nature. And 
the Greek ideal of life, which was now revived, is an aesthet- 
ical rather than a practical ideal ; not general utility, but the 
perfection and the manifestation of the personality is the 
function of the free man ; a slave serves merely by his work 
and the products of his work. This view reached its climax in 
Romanticism ; its programme was to despise utility and prose, 
to worship the individual and poetry, in literature and in life. 
Kant bears a dual relation to this movement : he is both 
friendly and hostile to it. He agrees with it in rejecting utili- 
tarianism and eudaemonism. On the other hand, the worship 
of the individual, which always leads to a contempt for com- 
mon morality, would undoubtedly have been extremely dis- 
tasteful to him ; he was not at all attracted to the genius who 
will acknowledge no law as binding upon himself. These 
two phases plainly appear in Schiller's relation to Kant. 
The matter is clearly and distinctly brought out in the 
treatise Uber Anmuth und Wilrde, in the passage in which 
Schiller develops the notion of the beautiful soul. He first 
emphasizes as the great merit of the immortal author of the 
Kritik that he has again restored the healthy reason by 
separating it from the (falsely) philosophizing reason, and 
has made duty and morality wholly independent of inclination 



MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 203 

and interest. " However," he continues, " though I am thor- 
oughly convinced that the association of inclination with a free 
act proves nothing in regard to the pure dutifulness of that 
act, I believe that we can infer from this very fact that the 
moral perfection of man depends solely upon the part which 
inclination plays in his moral conduct." Kant became the 
" Draco of his age, because his age did not seem to him to be 
worthy of a Solon or capable of receiving him. But what 
had the children of the household done that he cared only 
for the servants ? " The children of the household, however, 
are those beautiful souls " in whom the moral sense has 
gained such control over all the feelings that it may without 
fear abandon to the affections the government of the will, 
and never run the danger of contradicting its decrees. Hence 
it is not really this or that particular act which is moral in a 
beautiful soul, but the entire character." 

The correction which Schiller makes in the Kantian ethics 
is in itself admirable and necessary, but it is doubtful whether 
it can be reconciled with the principles of the system. At 
any rate, it would have been much easier to deduce Schiller's 
views from Shaftesbury's presuppositions. It is certainly 
not according to the Konigsberg philosopher's way of looking 
at things, for he has a keener sense for the correctness and 
exactness of the jurist than for the freedom and beauty of 
the poet. 

10. Now as for the progress of ethics in Germany after 
Kant, we cannot but regard Kant's reaction in favor of in- 
tuitionism as a disturbance, the effects of which have not 
yet been overcome in philosophy ; from that time on the Ger- 
mans have been constantly experimenting with new prin- 
ciples, often completely neglecting the results of historical 
development. Everybody's first and chief concern was to 
produce a new system, for to have one's own system was the 
mark of a philosopher. 

Speculative Philosophy was the direct historical successor oi 



204 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

the Kantian philosophy, although, in many respects, it con* 
pletely contradicted its source : the scientific arrogance, which 
Kant regarded it as his mission to overcome, in order " to 
establish the rights of humanity," never flourished so luxuri 
antly as in the systems of Schelling and Hegel. 

In ethics Speculative Philosophy abandons all previous con* 
ceptions. Ethics had arisen as the science of right conduct 
For such a practical discipline Speculative Philosophy sub- 
stitutes the theoretical contemplation and conceptual con- 
struction of mental-historical life. Ethics becomes mental 
science or philosophy of history; it becomes a companion- 
piece to natural philosophy. Just as the latter, following the 
Kantian conception that the laws of nature are laws of our 
understanding, constructs nature or the sphere of causality a 
priori, so the former constructs history or the sphere of free- 
dom a priori. 

Of recent years, men who are far from accepting its prin- 
ciples, as, for example, Wundt and Jodl, have shown a high 
regard for Speculative Philosophy, not usual in former times. 
Wundt expresses the opinion, in the preface of his Ethics, 
that the attempts which he makes to approximate the funda- 
mental notions of Speculative Philosophy in his ethics, will 
also be made in other fields of philosophical inquiry. Per- 
haps we may see herein, first of all, a sign that this phil- 
osophy has almost become historical in Germany. If instead 
of leading a retired life in dusty books, it were an active 
living rival for the control of our thoughts, the attitude of 
these thinkers would presumably be an entirely different one. 
Nor is that which meets their approval- in these systems what 
the systems themselves extolled as their peculiar merit: 
namely, the method of " scientific " deduction and demonstra- 
tion. 

The idealistic-monistic conception of the universe is an old 
philosophical heritage, and not merely a product of the Spec- 
ulative Philosophy and its method. Nay, perhaps it might be 



MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 205 

shown that this method has contributed, in no small degree, 
to the contempt in which that conception has been held in 
Germany during the last half of the century. The peculiar 
characteristic of the Hegelian philosophy is its contempt for 
the causal investigation of things, and its substitution of the 
conceptual-logical method ; which is equivalent to despising 
science itself, for all science, with the exception of mathe- 
matics, which is not a science of facts, aims at the discovery 
of causal connections. The same may be said of practical 
philosophy ; its method of investigation is the teleological 
method, the inversion of the causal investigation. And 
exactly the same unfruitfulness which characterizes specula- 
tive physics characterizes speculative ethics. Take Hegel's 
Naturrecht 1 (1821) and its empty juggling with concepts ; 
the investigation of institutions and forms from the stand- 
point of their effects upon human life is ridiculed as a shallow 
argumentation of the understanding ; instead, the reader 
receives the simple assurance: It follows from the concept 
of the state, or of the right, or of the monarchy. And with 
this is connected the extreme reverence which these thinkers 
have for the forms of historical life, for the state, for the 
right : as though these forms and not the concrete personal 
life which thrives in them were the thing of absolute worth j 
The underrating of what Kant regards as the truly mora! 
element, the good will, likewise connects itself with this. 

11. Instead of giving a detailed account of Hegel, let mo 
set forth the fundamental principles of the ethics of Schleier- 
macher, so far as that can be done briefly. 2 

1 [Selections from this work translated by Sterrett under the title, The Ethics 
of Hegel. For bibliography see Weber-Thilly, pp. 496-7.— Tr.] 

2 Entwurf eines Systems der Sittenlehre (Sketch of a System of Morals), edited 
from his literary remains by A. Schweitzer, 1835 ; a few academic treatises in 
the second volume of the philosophical writings. Die christliche Sitte nach den 
Grundsatzen der evangelischen Kirche (Christian Morals according to the Prin- 
ciples of the Evangelical Church), edited by L. Jonas, 1843, discusses the same 
topics, often more concretely and fruitfully than the philosophical ethics [Die 
philosophische Ethik, edited by Twesten). 



206 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

In a treatise discussing the difference between the natural 
and the moral law, Schleiermacher advances the view that 
the theory is inadequate which regards the moral laws as 
merely prescribing what ought to be, for in that case 
ethics would be a science of the non-existent ; but just as 
the natural law is the expression of the behavior of something 
real, the moral law must represent an actual occurrence. — 
This real thing is the effect of reason upon nature. Nature 
and reason, so the Sittenlehre teaches, material and spiritual 
being, constitute the greatest antithesis within the sphere of 
universal reality ; the former is the object of all natural- 
scientific, the latter the object of all mental-scientific, knowl- 
edge. All knowledge is twofold in form : speculative or 
contemplative, and empirical or observational. Thus Schlei- 
ermacher obtains the fourfold classification: contemplative 
knowledge of nature, or doctrine of nature (physics) ; obser- 
vational knowledge of nature, or natural history ; contem- 
plative knowledge of the action of reason, or the science of 
morals (ethics) ; and observational knowledge of the action 
of reason, or the science of history. Ethics, therefore, bears 
the same relation to history as speculative physics to the 
science of nature or cosmography: it defines in general the 
action of reason upon nature, which the science of history 
investigates in detail. 1 

The action of reason upon nature may be regarded as 
two-fold : as organizing and symbolizing. By acting upon 
things reason makes them the instruments of new effects. 
But in so far as it gives a thing form by means of every 
effect, reason makes the thing its "symbol, in which it ex« 
presses itself and through which it is recognized. 2 There is 
another antithesis: reason exists and acts in individuals as 
one and the same and on the other hand as a peculiar and 
individually distinct reason. This antithesis runs parallel 
with the one mentioned above, and so we again have the 

1 §§58ff. 2 §§124 ft 



MEDIEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 20Y 

favorite fourfold division : the activity of reason is identical 
and individual ; it is identical and differentiated organization 
and likewise symbolization. 1 But these antitheses are not 
mutually exclusive, but so many points of view from each 
of which everything moral may be viewed. Now, in so far 
as identical organization takes place, those goods arise whicli 
each one may employ as the instruments of the activity of 
reason in the same manner: they constitute the sphere of 
intercourse ; this is the field ruled by the law and the state. — 
In so far as the formative activity is individual or peculiar, 
it gives rise to property, not to juridical property, which also 
embraces exchangeable commodities, but to real property, 
which cannot be separated from the person who has pro- 
duced it without losing its value. The narrowest sphere of 
property in this sense is one's own body ; the next the 
encircling home, which includes the objective environment 
belonging to the person, and is the more valuable the more 
individual and inalienable it is. In so far as the home is 
opened to others for participation, hospitality arises, corre- 
sponding to intercourse in the sphere of identical organization. 
The symbolizing activity, in so far as it occurs under the 
character of identity, is knowledge, which manifests itself in 
language. The social form in which it is produced is the 
academy. The place of intercourse is the school. The sym- 
bolizing activity, in so far as it occurs under the character 
of differentiation or individuality, is feeling. It at first mani* 
fests itself in gestures and in intonation ; it expresses itself 
in a general way in the work of art. Art bears the same 
relation to religion that language bears to knowledge ; the 
social form in which religion, the manifestation of the uni- 
verse in feeling, is communicated, is the church. — In the 
same manner the entire field of morality is then defined as 
the doctrine of virtue and the doctrine of duty, while the part 
just discussed is called the doctrine of goods. 

1 § iss. 



208 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

The wonderful skill with which Schleiermacher, not unlike 
a far-seeing chess virtuoso, moves his concepts around, until 
the whole of reality is surrounded and checkmated as it were, 
has something fascinating in it when one follows his moves 
with credulous and patient attention: it is really wonderful 
to see how apparently the most remote things, obedient to 
the will of the master, readily submit themselves to the most 
surprising arrangements and relations which the magic wand 
of his dialectics assigns to them. But after turning one's 
back upon the game and again looking at the real world, one 
is apt to feel that no permanent gain results from the labor 
put forth: the whole thing is merely an ingenious game. 
Lotze concludes his exposition of Schleiermacher's aesthetics 
with the words : " If it be praised as a model of acute dia- 
lectics, I hope that the predilection for this sort of perform- 
ances, which take no real interest in the essence of the subject, 
but become logical exercises, and portray anamorphotically 
distorted pictures from their obstinately chosen secondary 
standpoints, will gradually disappear in Germany." 1 This 
hope was realized even before it was expressed. 

12. The moral philosophy of J. F. Herbart, presented in 
outline in the General Practical Philosophy 2 (1808), forms a 
complete antithesis to the speculative treatment of the sub- 
ject, in so far as it wholly separates ethics from the theoreti- 
cal sciences, from metaphysics and anthropology. However, 
it also agrees with the speculative method in that it wholly 
abandons the old form of investigation ; it makes ethics sub- 
sidiary to aesthetics. Herbart assumes the standpoint of the 
pure observer : human acts and motives arouse in the specta- 
tor feelings of pure aesthetic pleasure and displeasure ; these 
are absolutely independent of his interest: he may as a 
spectator be pleased with the act which from the standpoint 
of his interest he despises ; in so far he calls it morally good ; 

1 History of ^Esthetics, p. 166. 

2 Allgemeine praktische Philosophie. 



MEDIEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 209 

and he may, conversely, call bad what pleases and tempts him 
as an appetitive being. — General aesthetics has further con- 
vinced Herbart that particular elements as such never please 
or displease, but always as relations. And so he comes to ask 
the question which constitutes the problem of ethics : What 
relations of the will please or displease us ? He discovers five 
such fundamental relations : (1) The harmony between the 
will and the moral judgment of the same person ; (2) The 
greater by the side of the smaller, the stronger will by the side 
of the weaker ; (3) The harmony between the wills of two 
persons, — all these relations please us. (4) The conflict 
between two wills displeases us, while (5) The requiting of 
good with good and evil with evil pleases us. Herbart then 
adorns these pleasing relations with the name of ideas : ideas 
of inner freedom, of perfection, of benevolence, of law, of 
justice, and bases upon them the forms of collective life : the 
legal order, the wage system, the administrative system, the 
system of civilization, the animated society. 

I shall refrain from criticising this conception of the moral 
phenomena. In my opinion, it is as futile in its general aspects 
as it is forced and laborious in the details. Herbart's in- 
ability to appreciate the real and the living, his incapacity 
for constructing a unified system of thought, which, by the 
way, is partly due to his aversion to the speculative philosophy 
of his contemporaries and their extreme monistic tendencies, 
is nowhere so pronounced and intolerable as in his attempt 
to break up ethics into this conglomeration of so-called ideas. 

13. A. Schopenhauer 1 presents his conception of life in 
the fourth book of the World as Will and Idea ; 2 he makes 
an attempt to construct a moral philosophy in his essay on 
the Foundation of Morals, which, together with the treatise 
on the Freedom of the Will, was published in 1841 under the 
title : The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics. The first 

1 [For bibliography see Weber-Thilly, p. 544.] 

2 [Translation by Haldane and Kemp.] 



210 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

volume of the Parerga and Paralipomena contains Aphorisms 
on Worldly Wisdom, which, though full of acute observations^ 
is not in accord with the principles of his system. The 
system rests upon the pessimistic view of life. Life is sin 
and suffering, and not to live is therefore better than to live. 
Selfishness, intensified in malice, is the characteristic of the 
natural will. This mode of conduct is overcome in compas- 
sion. In so far as pity is the motive of action, it has moral 
worth. An act is called good when it has as its motive 
compassion for the sufferings of others, bad, when the 
agent rejoices at the woe of others, or at least attempts to 
promote his own welfare at the expense of that of others. 
The disappearance of the impulses which aim at individual 
welfare consequently is favorable to moral progress. In the 
saints of Christianity and Buddhism the selfish impulses are 
entirely suppressed, and their hearts thus opened to pity ; 
they themselves are unaffected by suffering, disappointment, 
fear, anxiety, and want ; with deep sympathy they view their 
brothers who are still fighting the useless battle for the vain 
goods of this world. 

I do not wish to enter upon a criticism of this theory at 
this point; we shall find an opportunity for that later on. 
But I should like to say a few words with respect to Schopen- 
hauer's personal relation to the morality of his system. 

It has often been pointed out that there is no harmony 
between Schopenhauer's system and his life. The system 
recommends renunciation of the world and negation of the 
will-to-live ; his life shows nothing of the kind ; he does not 
lead the life of an ascetic saint but' of an Epicurean, who 
makes a study of good living ; look at the list of good things 
which he placed before his will as motives when, after leav- 
ing Berlin, he was casting about for a permanent place of 
residence, and was wavering between Frankfort and Mann- 
heim. 1 In his system he praises compassion ; but he seems 

1 Gwinner, Schopenhauer's Life, 2d edition, p. 391. 



MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 211 

to have been rather devoid of this feeling himself. No one 
ever pursued his literary opponents more unmercifully than 
did Schopenhauer. We may say he was actuated by the 
love of truth, and regarded his adversaries as the enemies of 
truth. Let us grant it, let us say that this was one of the 
motives, although it does not justify the aspersions which he 
cast upon their characters. But think of his behavior towards 
his mother and his sister, when they were in danger of losing 
their fortune, whereas he saved his, showing more skill in the 
matter than, in his opinion, geniuses are wont to have; — he 
was, to say the least, very cool. During his entire life he was 
as careful as he was successful in guarding against sharing 
others' losses and sufferings. 

Then is not his philosophy of life one great lie ? 

It would be a mistake to say so. It is true, Schopen- 
hauer did not live the life which he praises as the best ; 
but he deeply and sincerely appreciated the value of such 
a life. 

Schopenhauer is a very transparent character ; the dualism 
of human nature, in which reason and desire form the two 
opposite poles, becomes unusually, nay, alarmingly discord- 
ant, in him. In so far as he is will, he lives an unhappy 
life. From his father he inherited a melancholy tempera- 
ment; he invariably sees things in the wrong light; little 
things, too, annoy him very much. He is full of violent 
desires, impetuous, high-tempered, ambitious, sensuous, and 
withal very diffident: he is constantly plagued by all kinds 
of vague fears of trouble, losses, diseases, which his sen- 
suous ego might suffer; he is extremely suspicious of all 
men without exception — in truth, a series of qualities, 
any one of which would have been sufficient to make his life 
unhappy. 

That is the one side of his life. And now look at the 
other ; he is also an intellect, nay a genius, endowed with a 
remarkable power of objective intuition. He has experienced 



212 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

the blessedness of the life of pure knowledge as purely and 
deeply as any thinker before him, nay perhaps more deeply 
than any other one, on account of the contrast between the 
intellectual side of his being and his restless, unhappy, 
volitional life. He can describe the tranquillity, the peace, 
and the joy of solitary contemplation, of the quiet commu- 
nion with thoughts, in the most affecting manner. 

Diirer has pictured this state of blessedness in a wonder- 
ful painting: Saint Jerome is seated in a quiet, wainscoted 
chamber, the cheerful sunlight falling through the round panes 
upon the wall of the deep window-niche. The companions 
of the Saint, the lion and the dog, anger and desire, are 
lying side by side, peacefully sleeping upon the floor ; we 
hear their deep, quiet breathing. A gourd, which is sus- 
pended from the ceiling, a skull, which is lying on the 
window-sill, diffuse about them the stillness which proceeds 
from things perfectly matured and removed from the turmoil 
of the world. A happy thought has just seized the Saint, and 
he bends forward, in order to set it down in writing ; soon 
he will lean back again and lose himself in contemplation. 
A picture producing a remarkable effect upon the thoughtful 
observer ! — it shows the wonderful power of real art to ex- 
press a world of thoughts and feelings in a single perception. 
How poor by the side of it seems that art which feeds on 
imitation, which, when it has the task of portraying solitude, 
silence, and philosophy, hits upon the plan of representing 
a more or less aged, allegorical female figure ! 

Schopenhauer might have sat as Durer's model for this 
picture. Freed from all desires and cares, pursuing his own 
thoughts, he enjoyed happy hours, without hurry and worry, 
without fear and hatred. But then came other times; the 
beasts which seemed to have been entirely tamed rose up 
again, destroyed his peace, and filled his life with trouble 
and anxiety. And he was helpless against them ; he often 
»ays so himself : it is a curious but undoubted fact that the 



MEDIEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 213 

clearest knowledge of the perverseness of the will can produce 
no change in it. 

This enables us to understand his ethical system : it is the 
confession of his failings and sins, it is the yearning of his 
better self for deliverance from the companion to whom it 
finds itself yoked. 

All this is neither surprising nor unusual. From what 
should a man seek to be delivered if not from himself? 
Petrarch writes De contemptu mundi and praises the freedom 
and simplicity of the shepherd and peasant life in the remote 
valley: he lives at the courts of the spiritual and secular 
lords, purchasing participation in their luxurious pleas- 
ures with flattery ; he wanders through the cities of France 
and Italy in order to intoxicate himself with the fragrance 
of his fame. He praises pure love and unselfish friendship : he 
lives with beautiful women, and his friends are the heralders 
of his fame, or assist him in his chase for benefices. He 
inveighs against envy, and cannot pronounce the name of 
Dante, because he hates him as a rival. — Is he a liar ? Not 
at all; he thoroughly appreciates the value of the things 
which he praises, he really feels a yearning for them, but 
he is likewise attracted to the vanities of life. G. Yoight, 
from whose masterly characterization I have taken the 
above elements, presents us with a delicate and faithful 
picture of him in his History of the Revival of Classical 
Antiquity. " The gaze which he turned inward was keen 
enough to penetrate the abyss of vanity to its very depth. 
Then he shuddered at his own soul, and yet could not tear 
his love away from it. He desired to bring it into harmony 
with its ideals, and began the fierce struggle with himself; 
but he never got beyond the determined mien and the angry 
word; he could not turn the sharp weapon which seeks 
the heart of the opponent against his beloved self. He 
imagined that he was doing penance in thinking and writing, 
but all his thinking and writing simply intensified his seli- 



214 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 

love. This vain soul, which he desired to hate, he finally 
loved all the more on account of its remorse and its painful 
struggles." 

So Rousseau : he preached against the corruption of morals, 
and pointed out the way to natural education : he lived with 
a concubine and sent his children to a foundling asylum, never 
to hear of them again. Was he a liar ? Certainly not. His 
passion for natural and pure human relations was perfectly 
sincere ; he really felt the degradation of unnatural relations, 
in which he had waded up to his knees ever since his youth, 
more keenly than any one of his contemporaries. A man 
that has never been sick does not know what health is. The 
hunchback is the most sincere admirer of a straight back, 
the bashful man of frank openness, the coward of martial 
courage. Was ever a man more in love with bravery than 
John Falstaff? Did ever a man prate more of princely 
virtue and royal duties than Carl Eugen of Wurtemberg? 
And what nation speaks more of civic virtue and republican 
sentiments than the French ? 

I once heard a proverb full of profound meaning : The man 
who rings the bell cannot march in the procession. 

14. The age of Speculative Philosophy was followed in 
Germany by an age of absolute contempt for philosophy. 
Historicism, the devotion to details, dominated science for 
a few decades. Metaphysics and ethics were forgotten. 
Of late the interest in these subjects is reviving. It is being 
centred on ethics from two sides. The modern biological 
theory propounds the question : How did custom and moral- 
ity arise, and what is their import in the economy of the 
nations and the individual ? On the other hand, the new 
social sciences invite us to take up the ultimate problems 
concerning the vocation of man and the conditions of its 
realization. Hence it happens that even jurists and political 
economists, physiologists and anthropologists, are beginning 
to philosophize again in our days. 



MEDIEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 215 

I shall content myself with mentioning a number of titles 
of the rapidly increasing modern literature. 1 

1 E. Dtihring, Der Wert des Lebens, 5th ed., 1894; M. Carriere, Die sittlicht 
Weltordnung, 1877, 2d ed., 1890 ; J. Baumann, Handbuch der Moral, 1879 ; E. von 
Hartmann, Phanomenologie des sittlichen Bewusstseins, 1879, 2d ed., 1886; W. 
Schuppe, Grundziige der Ethik und Rechtsphilosophie, 1881 ; E. Laas, Jdealismus 
und Positivismus, vol. II., 1882; G. von Gizycki, Grundziige der Moral, 2d 
ed., 1889; H. Steinthal, Allgemeine Ethik, 1885; P. Re'e, Die Entstehung des 
Gewissens, 1885; Th. Ziller, Allgemeine philosophische Ethik, 2d ed., 1886; W. 
Wnndt, Ethik, 2d ed., 1891 (translated into English) ; Chr. Sigwart, Vorfragen der 
Ethik, 1886; Fr. Nietzsche, Zur Genealogie der Moral, 1887; H. Hoffding, Ethik, 
1887 (German translation, 1889) ; F. Tonnies, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, 
1887; A. Do ring, Philosophische Gutcrlehre, 1888 ; P. Viktor Cathrein, Moral- 
philosophie, 2 vols., 1890-91 ; Th. Ziegler, Sittliches Sein und sittliches Werden, 2d 
ed., 1890 ; H. Gallwitz, Das Problem der Ethik in der Gegenwart, 1891 ; G. Runze, 
Ethik, vol. L: Praktische Ethik, 1891; G. Simmel, Einleitung in die Moral- 
voissenschaft, 2 vols., 1892*,; A. Domer, Das menschliche Handeln, Philosophische 
Ethik, 1895. Finally I also mention here A. von Ottingen, Moralstatistik, 4th 
ed., 1887 ; and R. von Jhering, Der Zweck im Recht, 2d ed., 18*4-86, 2 vols. 



BOOK II 

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS AND QUESTIONS OP 
PRINCIPLE 



If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not 
think or act right, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth, by 
which no man was ever injured. But he is injured who abides in 
his error and ignorance. — Marcus Auf^lius. 



METAPHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL 
INTRODUCTION 

I believe it will be wise to preface the following discussions 
with a summary of the metaphysical and psychological con- 
ceptions upon which they are based. A more detailed ac- 
count of some of these problems will be found in my Intro* 
duction to Philosophy. 1 

1. Reality manifests itself in two phases. Seen from with- 
out, by the senses, it manifests itself as a corporeal world ; seen 
from within, in self-consciousness, as psychical life. 

2. The two sides are co-extensive. Every psychical process 
has its equivalent in the physical world, and, conversely, every 
physical process has a psychical equivalent. 

3. Body is a phenomenon and the symbol of psychical life, 
which is the true reality, or reality in itself. 

4. Psychical life is immediately experienced only in our 
own inner life, of which our body is the phenomenon. 

5. We reason by analogy from the form and movement 
of bodies, and so come to assume the existence of psychical 
life in things outside of us. But we reach an adequate and 
penetrating knowledge of the inner human processes only, and 
therefore regard the psychical world as co-extensive with his- 
torical human life. 

6. The unity of all mental life we call God. God's essence 
transcends our knowledge. We conceive God by means of 
the highest human psychical life. This explains the anthro- 
pomorphic symbolism of all religions. 

1 [Fourth edition, 1896 ; English translation by Frank Thilly. — Tb.] 



220 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

7. Psychical life has two phases, will and intelligence. The 
will manifests itself in strivings and feelings, the intelligence 
in sensation, perception, and thinking. 

8. Biological and evolutionistic reflections reveal the will 
as the primary and radical element of psychical life. Life 
originally consists in blind striving, without presentation of 
ends and means. The intelligence manifests itself as a sec- 
ondary development, as a growth, like its physiological phe- 
nomenon, the nervous system and brain. 

9. Psychology also shows the will to be the primary ele- 
ment. A specific will, aiming at a particular form of life, 
manifests itself as the inner essence of man as well as of 
every living being. The will-to-live, the will to live a specific 
life, is not the result of previous knowledge or of the experi- 
ence which we gain of its worth through feeling. 

10. The development of the will may be characterized by 
three stages: impulse, desire, and will in the narrower 
sense. The goal at which it aims in each of the three stages 
is the preservation and promotion of individual and generic 
life. 

11. The original form of the will is blind impulse ; in con- 
sciousness it appears as a felt striving. In case the craving 
is satisfied, the successful activity is accompanied by pleasur- 
able feelings ; in case it is obstructed, pain ensues. 

12. Sensuous desire is impulse accompanied by the percep- 
tion of the object or idea of the movement at which it aims. 
It presupposes a certain development of intelligence and a 
fusion of will and idea. The satisfaction or inhibition of the 
desire is likewise accompanied by pleasurable or painful 
feelings. 

13. Will, in the narrower sense, or rational will, is desire 
determined by purposes, principles, and ideals. It arises in man 
as the highest development of the will, when the intelligence 
develops into rational, self-conscious thought. The will be- 
comes conscious of itself in the practical ideal of life. Feel- 



INTRODUCTION 221 

ings of satisfaction accompany conduct which conforms to the 
ideal, while acts out of harmony with the ideal arouse feelings 
of dissatisfaction. 

14. The rational will, governed by an ideal, subjects the 
lower forms of will, impulse, and desire, which persist even 
in man as natural predispositions, to constant criticism and to 
a process of selection. This criticism we call conscience. 
The faculty of educating and disciplining the natural will by 
means of the rational will is called freedom of the will. A 
being who thus controls his inner life is called a personal 
being. 

15. The relation of will to feeling may be expressed as 
follows : Every act of will is originally also an emotion, and 
conversely, every emotion is at the same time positive or 
negative willing. In feeling, the will becomes conscious of 
itself, of its aim, and of its condition. Feeling is not the 
cause of the act of will, the will is already present in feeling 
as in its manifestation. 

16. In the higher stages of development, the relation is 
somewhat different. Here we have volitions which are not at 
the same time feelings. A resolution or decision to do some- 
thing may take place without being accompanied by feeling ; 
indeed, it may be opposed to the immediate feeling. Con- 
versely, we have feelings, especially aesthetic feelings, which 
are no longer motives of the will, although the will i» still 
mirrored in them. 



CHAPTER I 

GOOD AND BAD. TELEOLOGICAL AND FORMALISTIC 

CONCEPTIONS * 

1. As was said before (p. 34), two problems formed the 
original starting-point of ethical reflection; the same two 
problems must invariably carry the thinking man back to 
ethics again. The first springs from the function of moral 
judgment : What is the ultimate ground of moral distinctions f 
The second has its origin in the volitional and active nature 
of man : What is the ultimate end of will and action ? 

The first question, as our historical review has shown, gives 
rise to two theories, the teleological and the formalistic. The 
former explains the difference between good and bad by the 
effects which modes of conduct and acts of will naturally 
produce upon the life of the agent and his surroundings. 
Acts are called good when they tend to preserve and promote 
human welfare ; bad, when they tend to disturb and destroy 
it. Formalistic ethics, on the other hand, claims that the 
concepts good and bad, taken in their moral sense, designate 
an absolute quality of the will, without any regard to the 
effects of acts or modes of conduct ; that this quality can- 
not be further explained, but must be accepted as a fact. 

1 [For the teleological view : Mill, Utilitarianism, chap. II. ; Spencer, Data 
of Ethics, chaps. I.-III. ; Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, 420 ff. ; Stephen, Science of 
Ethics, chaps. IV., V. ; Hoffding, Ethik, chap. VII. ; Ethische Principienlehre, 
IV. ; also Int. Journal of Ethics, 1890 (October) ; Jhering, Der Zweck im Recht, 
vol. II., pp. 95 ff. ; Wundt, Ethik, Part III., chap. II.-IV. Against the teleologi- 
cal view : Abbott's translation of Kant's Ethics, pp. 9 ff . ; Lecky, History of 
European Morals, chap. I. ; Bradley, Ethical Studies ; Martineau, Types of Ethi* 
tal Theory, vol. II. ; Gallwitz, Das Problem der Ethik in der Gegenwart. — Te.J 



GOOD AND BAD 223 

" That will is good," says Kant, " which is determined by 
respect for duty; that will is bad which is determined by 
the opposite." — I am an advocate of the teleological view. 

The second question : What is the end of all willing ? has 
also given rise to different answers, which may be reduced to 
two fundamental forms : the hedonistic and the energistic. 
The former asserts that the will is universally and invariably 
bent upon pleasure (or avoidance of pain), and, hence, that 
pleasure is the highest or absolute good, which is not desired for 
the sake of anything else. The energistic view, on the other 
hand, holds: The will does not aim at pleasure, but at an 
^objective content of life, or, since life consists solely of action, 
at definite concrete activities. 

I regard the latter conception as the correct one. My view 
may, therefore, be characterized as teleological energism. Our 
principle would then be : Such modes of conduct and volitions 
are good as tend to realize the highest goal of the will, which 
may be called welfare. I mean by it the perfection of our 
being and the perfect exercise of life. 

The two following chapters will set forth the reasons which 
seem to me to support this view. But first let me say a word 
concerning the terminology which I have chosen. 

It is customary to use the term utilitarian instead of teleo- 
logical. What induced me totally to discard the former ex- 
pression in the later editions of my book has been, aside from 
philological objections, the impossibility of guarding it against 
misconception. It originated in Bentham's school; John 
Stuart Mill confesses, in his Autobiography, that he coined 
the term. It is, in its origin, inseparably connected with 
hedonism ; hence the critics who have had time for nothing 
but a superficial glance at the terminology employed in my 
ethics have insisted on confusing it with Bentham's system. 
In order to prevent the recurrence of this error, I have sub- 
stituted for the term utilitarian the term teleological. The 
latter has the additional advantage of suggesting the general 



224 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

theory of the universe from which this form of ethics takes its 
rise, the Platonic-Aristotelian philosophy. Its fundamental 
idea is that every being and, hence, also man, has a purpose 
in the universe. This purpose, and the forms and functions of 
life arising therefrom, it is the business of ethics to ascertain. 

I have coined the term energism, in order to bring my 
view into sharp contrast with hedonism : the end of the will 
is not feeling, but action. Its resemblance to Aristotle's 
ivipyeca may also serve to remind us of the origin of the con- 
cept. The word welfare, finally, seems suited to designate 
the highest good in its twofold aspect : it shows, first, that 
the highest good is an objective content of life, consisting in 
the perfect exercise of all human psychical powers ; then it 
also suggests that such a life is accompanied with pleasure, 
and hence that pleasure is not excluded from the perfect life, 
but included in it. 

2. I shall first attempt to show what the teleological theory 
means, and give reasons for it. Popular opinion inclines 
more to the formalistic view : Acts are not morally good or 
bad according to their effects ; they are good or bad in them- 
selves. The disposition determines the moral worth of the 
act, not the effects. 1 Even if the compassion of the good 
Samaritan in the Gospel had not saved the man who fell 
among thieves, nay, even if it had caused his death, that is, if 
the thieves bad attacked and killed the rescuer and had then 
put to death the wounded traveller in order to destroy all evi- 
dence of their crime — this would not in the least affect our 
judgment of the moral worth of the act. Or, suppose that a 
slanderous remark, instead of finding" ready acceptance, as is 
usually the case, is repudiated and simply deprives the calum- 
niator of the confidence which he has hitherto undeservedly 
enjoyed. And suppose that the episode causes a greater 
interest to be taken in the injured party and greater con- 
fidence to be reposed in him. Nevertheless, however desir- 
1 [See Abbott's Kant, pp. 9 ff . ; Martineau, vol. II., pp. 53 f . — Tb.] 



GOOD AND BAD 225 

able such effects may be, they do not alter the baseness of 
calumny. 

We should answer : The statement is true, but it is not an 
objection against the teleological theory. The theory does 
not, of course, claim that the value of the particular acts is to 
be judged by their actual results, but that acts and modes of 
conduct are good or bad in so far as they naturally tend to 
produce favorable or unfavorable effects. It lies in the very 
nature of slander to deprive the victim of his good name and 
the confidence of his surroundings. In the case mentioned it 
was not the fault of the calumniator that the effect did not 
appear, it was due to the conscientiousness, vigilance, and 
knowledge of human nature of the person who saw through 
the trick. The slanderous remark, one might say, adapting 
the terminology of Aristotle, was causa per accidens, not 
causa per se, an accidental occasion, but not the cause of the 
favorable results. Morality, however, has to do not with 
the actual consequences, but with the effects flowing from the 
very nature of the act. Physics has to do with the law of 
gravitation and not with the infinitely variable actual move- 
ments of falling bodies ; it investigates the law of gravitation, 
ignoring the fact that the tendency to gravitation is not the 
sole cause of the actual movement of a body. Similarly, 
medicine seeks to determine the natural tendency of a 
remedy or a poison to act upon the organism, knowing full 
well that a thousand other causes may diminish, modify, or 
even counteract its effects in a particular case. In the same 
way, ethics seeks to determine the natural tendencies of modes 
of conduct and not the innumerable, variable, actual results of 
the particular acts. It asks: What would be the effect of 
calumny upon humanity if it alone determined the result ? and 
judges its worth according to the answer. Similarly, to take 
the other example, benevolence naturally tends to diminish 
human misery, and is therefore good. 

Or is this a mistake ? Is benevolence good in itself, regard- 



226 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

less of its effects, and malevolence bad in the same sense ? 
Would not the Samaritan have been what he was if he had 
been wholly unable to render aid, if he had been compelled 
to remain at home, poor, sick and in need of help himself ? 
Certainly; but the teleological view, rightly understood, does 
not dispute it. Here, again, it is a pure accident that a 
virtue does not realize its effects; its tendency remains the 
same, and the tendency is what we judge. But suppose that 
it were impossible, in the nature of things, for one man to 
help another, suppose that each individual inhabited his own 
planet and could see the misery of the inhabitant of a neigh- 
boring planet without being able to help him in any way ? 
Then would compassion be good ? Should we not say : It is 
not good for him to feel pity, it simply doubles the sorrow ; 
it would be much better if he lacked the power to see the 
wretchedness of others ? Nevertheless, he would be a good 
man, you say. Very true ; but it is tacitly assumed that if 
he were near and could render aid, his being there would be 
a benefit. We have here an instance similar to what we find 
in the theoretical field ; we ignore a relation which is con- 
stantly and necessarily presupposed. We say, The stars are 
bright points, and believe that we are thereby attributing to 
them an absolute quality. Epistemological reflections first 
convince us that such a judgment presupposes a point of re- 
lation, namely, an eye that is sensitive to light. Here, too, 
common-sense would say : But the stars would surely shine 
even if all eyes were closed. Certainly ; but that simply 
means that if an eye were again opened, it would see them. 
If there were no eyes at all, there would be no shining points. 
Similarly, if men did not produce effects upon men, if they 
were metaphysically isolated from each other, like Leibnizian 
monads, it would be utterly absurd to say that malevolence 
was bad and benevolence good. The words malevolence and 
benevolence would be devoid of meaning. 

3. But another objection is urged. Your theory does not 



GOOD AND BAD 227 

meet the facts after all. The moral judgment is not con- 
cerned with acts and modes of conduct, but with the disposi- 
tion of the agent. The act is good when its motive is good, 
that is, when it springs from the sense of duty, be its effect 
what it may. 1 

Nor is this statement untrue. It is a fact that the moral 
judgment of a particular act first considers the disposition of 
the agent. We try to ascertain the moral worth of the per- 
son, which manifests itself in the act, and therefore inquire into 
his motives. A physician performs a dangerous operation, and 
the patient dies from it. The public now pronounces judg- 
ment. Did the physician do it from a sordid motive ? No, 
the patient was unable to pay. Was it ambition that prompted 
him ? Hardly, for he had successfully performed the opera- 
tion a hundred times, and this was a desperate case. Well, 
then, he must have been extremely careless ! No, it took him 
a long time to make up his mind to do it. He simply felt 
that it was his duty to make a final attempt to save the 
patient's life. — When that conclusion has been reached, it 
means that the act was morally unassailable. 

But it does not necessarily follow that the operation was 
justified by the facts. This is a point that must be settled 
by the physicians ; and if they find that the outcome of the 
case could have been foreseen, they blame the physician and 
say : He should not have done it. And, hence, it is not the dis- 
position, but the result that decides after all. That is, not the 
actual, particular result — no one can be held accountable 
for an accident — but the result which was to be expected 
from the nature of the case. 

The same thing meets us everywhere : a distinction is 
made between a personal and an objective judgment aroused 
by the same act. Every act gives rise to two judgments, 
a subjective, formal judgment of the disposition of the 
person and an objective, material judgment of the act itself. 

1 [Kant, ibid. ; Martineau, vol. II, Part II. ; Bradley, Eth'cal Studies.— Til.] 



228 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

In the former case, we inquire into the motive, in the latter, 
into the effects following from the nature of the case. 1 

It is of the utmost importance that we clearly understand 
this difference, and also that we see that these two judgments 
are independent of each other and may even contradict each 
other. An act may be objectively wrong, and yet the agent 
may be personally irreproachable. It is said of St. Crispin 
that he stole leather to make shoes for the poor. Does that 
make Crispin a thief and a rascal ? We shall hardly be will- 
ing to say so. He would surely never have taken the mean- 
est thing for himself. But when he saw poor children with 
sore and half frozen feet, his heart was grieved, and having 
nothing himself he took a piece of leather from the rich 
merchant in order to help them. Not without some reluc- 
tance, we may imagine ; for he, too, had learned the com- 
mandment, " Thou shall not steal." But so great was his 
pity that he risked the danger of the gallows. Of what use, 
he may have thought, is his wealth to the rich usurer ? It 
will merely lead to his damnation. Perhaps, God in his 
mercy will credit him with the act of charity which he will 
thus involuntarily perform. And so Crispin went and took 
with a good conscience as much as he needed. If pity and 
good will are absolutely good, they are certainly good in this 
case also. The subjective formal judgment must be: The 
will of Crispin, who served others with a clear conscience 
and by sacrificing his own interests, was a good will. 

But this judgment is not the only one to which the act 
gives rise. The act itself is made the object of a judgment 
which is formed on the basis of the -effects naturally belong- 
ing to it. Objectively considered, the act is undoubtedly 
theft : depriving a man of his property without the consent of 

1 ["An act is materially good when in fact it tends to the interest of the sys« 
tern, so far as we can judge of its tendency, or to the good of some part 
consistent with the system, whatever were the affections of the agent." "An 
action is formally good when it flowed from good affection in a just proportion.* 
(HutchesonJ — Tr.] 



GOOD AND BAD 229 

the owner. Such a mode of conduct has, from the very 
nature of the case — whatever may be the motive — effects 
which are extremely dangerous to human welfare. If such 
conduct became general, if everybody were to act according 
to the maxim : If in your opinion you can do more good by 
taking a commodity from its owner and giving it to another, 
then it is your right or your duty to make the transfer, re- 
gardless of the owner's washes, what would be the result ? 
Evidently, the complete abolition of the institution of prop- 
erty, and with it, the disappearance of the desire to acquire 
more than momentary needs call for, and the destruction of 
human life. Hence, the effects which follow from the nature 
of such an act are ruinous, and the act is bad. And so uni- 
versal is this belief that such acts are prohibited and pun- 
ished as stealing. Had Crispin been brought before a judge, 
the latter would have been compelled to condemn him with- 
out hesitation. Not only because the law required it; nay, 
even if he had made the law himself, he could not have acted 
otherwise. He would not have been willing to insert a clause 
into the code in favor of Crispin's theft, to wit : But every 
encroachment upon the property of another shall go unpun- 
ished, provided a third party thereby receives a benefit 
exceeding the damage done to the owner. No, the formula : 
Interference with the property rights of others is punishable, 
holds unconditionally. The most that the judge could have 
done would have been to take into account extenuating cir- 
cumstances. And he might, perhaps, have told the accused 
privately how sorry he was to have been compelled to sen- 
tence him. I know that your intentions were good, he might 
have said, but I should like to show you that your mode of 
procedure was not the proper one, so that you may not con- 
sider yourself unjustly treated. And he might then have 
proved to him that his act, innocent though it may have 
seemed, was absolutely incompatible with the general welfare. 
The historian will frequently find himself placed in a 



230 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

similar position. He will condemn an act without therefore 
condemning the character of the agent, and conversely. So 
far as we are able to judge from his letters and the testimony 
of his friends, K. L. Sand, the murderer of Kotzebue, acted 
in the firm belief that he was sacrificing himself for his 
country. He believed that it was his duty to destroy the 
enemy who was corrupting the soul of his people. And if it 
is harder to die on the scaffold than on the field of battle, we 
cannot underrate Sand's devotion to what he felt to be his 
duty. But the same act was, objectively considered, highly 
reprehensible. If every man were allowed to sit in judg- 
ment upon the life of his neighbor, and to kill him in case 
he considered him a menace to the community, all law and 
order would disappear, and the war of all against all would 
become inevitable. There is hardly a man, at least not in 
public life, whose activity is not regarded by some one in the 
community as a curse, and whose death some one would not 
welcome as a blessing to humanity. Hence, the sentence of 
death pronounced upon the murderer of Kotzebue was en- 
tirely just and necessary. The inquisitors persecuted her- 
etics and brought them to the stake. It is conceivable and 
probable that some of them at least did what they did with 
a heavy heart : not because they rejoiced in the sufferings of 
others — nay, they suffered themselves — but because they felt 
it to be their duty, because they were firmly convinced that it 
would be better for a heretic to die than that a whole people 
should be tempted and corrupted by him. Subjectively con- 
sidered, their conduct was without blame, no less so than that 
of the judge who sentenced poor Sand. The difference is a 
material difference only : we are no longer convinced that 
the safety of a people demands the persecution and execution 
of those who differ from us in matters of religion. 

The inability to keep these two views apart causes much 
confusion. Whoever condemns the act believes that he must 
assume an evil motive in order to justify his disapproval of 



GOOD AND BAD 231 

the character, that he must attribute love of power and 
cruelty to the inquisitors, vanity and a craving for notori- 
ety to Sand. Conversely, whoever approves and under- 
stands the character of the agent feels bound to approve of 
the act, and gives it an innocent or even praiseworthy name. 
The moralizing party-eloquence of the historians finds an 
excellent field here. Such names and motives are selected 
for acts as arouse the love and admiration or the hatred and 
indignation of the reader. As a rule, writers of this class 
do not care so much for the truth as to make things appear 
good or bad in the eyes of the reader. 

We now come back to our question. It is clear that the 
objective, material judgment is justified teleologically : the 
value of acts and modes of conduct depends upon their 
ability to solve the problems of life, or upon their effects upon 
the conduct of life. But the same may ultimately be said 
of the subjective, formal judgment. First, however, let me 
say that it is the real business of ethics to determine the 
objective value of modes of action and conduct, not to decide 
upon the subjective, personal value of the disposition of the 
agent. It is manifestly not the function of the science to deter- 
mine the motive and disposition in a particular case ; and it 
is not its function, or at least only to a very small degree, to 
establish the principles underlying this judgment. The prin- 
ciple of the subjective, formal judgment is : An act is good 
in so far as it springs from a will determined by the con- 
sciousness of duty. In saying this we say everything that 
can be said upon the subject. It is morally right to act 
conscientiously, it is morally wrong to act contrary to one's 
conscience, be the content of conscience whatever it may. 
But there never was an ethics that stopped here ; it has in- 
variably attempted to find an answer for the other question 
also : What is it that duty really enjoins ? For no ethics can, 
without ignoring the most patent facts, get around the fact 
that conscience commands and permits different persons to 



232 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

act differently in the same case ; nay, that its dictates are 
not infrequently different for the same person at different 
times. Now, it is surely not the object of ethics merely to 
command the individual to obey his conscience, but above all 
to guide his conscience, that is, to teach him to decide what 
is the content of a normal conscience. And if scientific ethics 
cannot follow the example of theological ethics and appeal 
to the commands of a transcendent law-giver, or to the 
absolute decisions of an infallible court, and if it cannot, with- 
out renouncing its scientific character, do what Herbart and 
Lotze show an inclination to do, that is, appeal to the categor- 
ical formula — My, the moralist's, conscience, the normal con- 
science, decrees as follows — then it has no other course than 
to measure the content of the conscience or of the duties 
which it enjoins by an objective standard ; and this objective 
standard, again, can only be the value which modes of action 
and conduct derive from their relation to an ultimate and 
highest good. 

Finally, however, the subjective, formal conception itself 
is reduced to the teleological view. To act from respect for 
duty, from conscientiousness, is morally good. Why is con- 
scientiousness good ? Or is this an absurd question ? I do 
not believe it. Conscientiousness is objectively good, the 
moral philosopher will find, because conscience tends to 
determine the conduct of the individual to the end that he 
may promote the welfare of the agent and his surroundings. 
Inclinations are variable and untrustworthy ; conscience is, on 
the whole, the same in all the individuals of a people, and there- 
fore makes their conduct uniform in so far as it has power over 
them. Even this formal point is a gain. Moreover, the con- 
tents of the individual conscience represent positive morality, 
the objective morality of the people, which is inculcated in the 
individual during his entire life, by example, by praise and 
blame. But the general moral code, in turn, contains the cus- 
toms (Sitten) and laws of a people or an entire sphere of civili- 



GOOD AND BAD 233 

zation. Customs, however, so anthropology tells us, are to be 
regarded as a kind of social instinct, by which all the individ- 
uals of a particular, historical society are impelled to perform 
acts tending to the preservation of individual and social life. 
Hence, conscience, thus interpreted, would have to be re- 
garded as a principle which impels the individual to promote 
his own most vital interests and the interests of the commu- 
nity of which he is a member. Let this suffice, for the pres- 
ent, upon this point. I shall return to it in the fifth chapter 
of the second book. 1 

The principle of teleological energism then would be : 
The objective value of human conduct is ultimately de- 
termined by its relation to a final and highest end or good, 
which consists in the perfect development of being and the 
exercise of vital functions ; and the worth of a good will, of 
a will actuated by a feeling of duty, ultimately depends upon 
its power to influence action for the highest good. 

4. Before entering upon a more detailed definition of the 
highest good, I should like to answer a few objections which 
might be urged against my view. 

In the first place, Is not this principle identical with the 
oft-quoted maxim which, in spite of their protestations, we 
are in the habit of attributing to the Jesuits : The end justi- 
fies the means? If the value of a mode of conduct depends 
upon its effects, must we not also grant it of a particular 
act? 

Indeed, I do not see how teleological ethics can deny the 
proposition. But I see no reason why it should wish to deny 
it. When rightly understood, the proposition is harmless and 
necessary. When misconstrued, of course, it becomes absurd 
and damnable. If we mean by it : So long as the end is per 
missible or good, any means may be employed to realize it, — 
then, indeed, there is not a crime which might not be justi- 
fied by it. It is lawful and good to acquire money for one's 

1 [See Stephen, Science of Ethics, chap. IV., § 4. — Tb.] 



234 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

self and one's family. Now, if the proposition be interpreted 
in the sense just indicated, then it would be right not only 
to work for wages, but even to hire out as an assassin, pro- 
vided it were done for the sake of the good end. It is good 
to help your neighbor in need ; if the proposition were entirely 
true, it would be right to perjure one's self in order to acquit 
a good friend in court. This is evidently the interpretation 
which the opponents of the Jesuits accuse them of having put 
upon the maxim. The idea is : The Jesuits act according to 
the principle that any means, as for example, the murder of 
heretical kings, breach of faith, perjury, where heretics are 
concerned, etc., which furthers any end which the Jesuits 
themselves consider good, say the increase of papal power 
and the advancement of their own order, or the annihilation 
of Protestantism, is right. It is easy to understand why the 
Jesuits are unwilling to acknowledge the proposition either 
as the actual maxim of their acts, or as the principle of their 
morality. 

If, on the other hand, we interpret the proposition to mean : 
Not any lawful end you please, but only the end justifies the 
means ; and there is only one end which determines all 
values, namely, the highest good, the welfare or perfection of 
humanity, then it is not only harmless, but inevitable. An 
act that realizes this purpose is not only permissible, but 
good and necessary. Everybody, with perhaps the exception 
of a few philosophers who have a principle to defend, will 
acknowledge this. There can be no controversy on the 
point whether it is right to do what is proved to be neces- 
sary to realize this end ; the only question is, whether an 
act that violates a universal law may, under certain condi- 
tions, produce such an effect. If that were proved, every- 
body would admit the objective goodness of such an act. If 
an intentional falsehood had and could have only beneficial 
effects, it would not be a reprehensible lie. If by depriving 
a man of his property, we should and could injure no one. 



GOOD AND BAD 235 

neither the owner nor the community, by the bad example, 
nor the thief, by creating a habit in him — if the act resulted 
in the greatest good, it would not be theft. When a physi- 
cian removes a patient's eye in order to save the other eye, 
or cuts off his leg to save his life, his act is not criminal as- 
sault and battery, but a means justified by the end. Should 
the same physician yield to the fervent entreaties of an 
absolutely hopeless patient afflicted with an incurable and 
highly contagious disease contracted in a foreign land, and 
give him a fatal poison, and then bring the matter to the 
attention of the authorities, it would not be murder. The 
physician would, of course, be culpable before the law, and 
it is obvious why the law which punishes such offenses could 
not be suspended. But, morally considered, the case is the 
same as when an officer, after the necessary formalities, 
shoots down the ring-leader of a riot. How else could we 
justify the latter act if not by the end which it subserves, that 
is, the maintenance of public order ? If the killing of a man 
were in itself bad, a command of the state could not make it 
good, for a command cannot make black white, or change the 
nature of things. 

Then shall we say that falsehood, deceit, and murder are 
justifiable, or even meritorious, provided they have nothing 
but beneficial effects upon the welfare of humanity ? There 
are two reasons why it is impossible to affirm this question 
without further comment. In the first place, on account of 
the contradictions involved in the meaning of the terms. 
The words, murder and falsehood, signify not merely an 
objective fact, intentional killing or deception, but likewise 
imply condemnation. The judgment, Murder is wrong, is 
an " analytical " judgment ; it means an act of homicide 
that is legally and morally wrong. Hence, in order to 
obtain a pure judgment, we must eliminate the condemna- 
tion expressed in the term, and pronounce judgment upon 
the objective fact alone, that is, upon the intentional act of 



236 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

homicide. Now homicide can unquestionably be a lawiui 
and even dutiful act ; indeed it is enjoined by statute, the 
execution of which is enforced. — Yery true, we hear the 
objector say ; nevertheless, the individual as such is prohibited 
from killing any one except in self-defense ; the killing of a 
foreigner or a native for the sake of the welfare of the people 
would be punished as murder. And yet, even such killing 
would be justifiable according to the principle, provided we 
were thoroughly convinced that it is essential to the welfare 
of humanity. 

Our answer is : The mere conviction is by no means suffi- 
cient to justify the act ; nothing but the actual impossibility of 
a different effect can do that. This brings us to the second 
reason why we cannot accept the above proposition. We 
may say, the proposition : The welfare of humanity is an 
end which justifies, without exception, every act that is a 
means to that end, is in theory wholly unobjectionable, but 
cannot be applied in practice We can never figure out 
whether an act of this kind, for example the killing of a 
corruptor of the people, a revolutionist, or a tyrant, by a 
private person, will have only favorable or approximately 
favorable effects upon the welfare of humanity, or even 
upon the permanent welfare of a particular people. When 
Napoleon I. trampled upon the nations of Europe many a 
brave man must have felt a desire to kill him and so to 
free his oppressed people. Let us suppose that such a 
person had succeeded in assassinating the Emperor at 
Erfurt, in 1808, at the sacrifice of his own life. Would he 
have rendered humanity, the oppressed and down-trodden, 
a service ? Many of his contemporaries would probably have 
believed it. We of the present day, however, should feel 
inclined to say : It is well that such a thing did not happen. 
It is well that the nations of Europe were compelled to win 
their freedom in open, honorable battle. Had Napoleon 
fallen by the hand of an assassin, the bad example might have 



GOOD AND BAD 237 

corrupted the moral judgment of men for centuries, it might 
have had a pernicious influence upon the relations existing 
between the different nations, the German people would not 
have experienced that inner regeneration which gave back 
to them their national consciousness and made possible their 
political existence in the new Empire. True, we cannot 
absolutely prove it. — Some one may reply : If the tyrant 
had been killed in time, much bloodshed would have been 
avoided, there would have been no Holy Alliance of notori- 
ous fame, and the feeling of national pride which has taken 
such hold upon the nations of Europe, and is now terrorizing 
them with the fears of war and weighing them down with 
armaments, would not have gained such an unfortunate as- 
cendency over the feeling of universal brotherly love, and so 
on. This view too, may be true, and we cannot prove by any 
form of reasoning that it is false. Nay, we cannot even prove 
that the battle of Sedan was a blessing for the German people. 
'All that we can do is to believe these things, and faith rests 
-♦upon the will. 4 *It is just as impossible to make an absolute 
calculation of the effects of a movement in physics, because 
every effect continues ad infinitum, as it is to determine 
the objective value of a particular act from its relation to 
the highest human end, in moral philosophy. Here, as in the 
former case, we are dealing with infinite quantities. We can 
merely estimate the general tendencies of motion in physics, 
and the tendencies of modes of action to further or retard 
welfare in morals. 

Still, we must confess that circumstances may arise under 
which the end justifies exceptions to the rule, just as poisons 
may sometimes be used as remedies. It is the same in morals 
as in politics. No statesman, no historian, will refuse to 
grant that a breach of positive law may, under certain cir- 
cumstances, become a necessity. But no one will dare to claim, 
unless he is a partisan and not a theorist, that he can strictly 
prove the necessity of a particular revolution. Such things 



238 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

can be believed, but not proved. No one can ever estimate all 
the consequences of a violation of law, especially not the 
more remote ones. A revolution as such invariably tends to 
destroy the legal order, and to weaken the authority of law. 
To what extent this actually occurs no one can tell. The 
feeling of insecurity produced by the example of such a vio- 
lation of law may continue for centuries after its occur- 
rence. We can no more calculate the unfavorable effects 
than we can calculate the favorable ones ; we can never prove 
that the sum of the latter exceeds that of the former. The 
same may be said of infractions of the moral laws. There 
may be cases in which these become necessary, but we can 
never prove it in a particular instance. It will never be pos- 
sible to prove that the sum of all the evil effects which a 
breach of law may directly and indirectly produce in 
one's own life and that of others, is overbalanced by the im- 
mediate good effects which are aimed at. Consequently, 
whoever breaks the law, always does so at his own peril. 
The man who remains within the bounds of the law can 
make no mistake. Of course, energetic natures do not care 
chiefly for their own safety. The men who have brought 
about great crises in history have, as a rule, in some way 
or other, departed from the safe course of universal morality 
and law. 

The most serious thing about our proposition is its tendency 
to make us forget the more remote consequences, and empha- 
size the immediate ones. The end justifies the means, says 
the partisan to himself, when he attempts to secure the victory 
for his party at an election by slandering the opposing can- 
didate. The end justifies the means, says the politician who 
strives to gain an advantage for his country by fraud or by 
force. The end justifies the means, says the churchman who 
calumniates and disgraces an honest man because he does 
not accept the "sound doctrine." The maxim in its evil 
meaning finds the freest scope in partisan activity. Party 



GOOD AND BAD 239 

morality is always and everywhere inclined to identify the 
advantage of the party with the welfare of the people or 
humanity. The cause of the party is, of course, the good 
cause, hence whatever conduces to it is lawful ! 

Did the Society of Jesus innocently employ this mode 
of reasoning ? It is commonly assumed that it did, and 
indeed the proposition, extra ecclesiam nulla salus, suggests 
the conclusion : Whatever tends to increase the power of the 
church, to shatter the power of its enemies, or to advance the 
power of its friends — among whom we are the most faithful 
and the most zealous — is good, whether it be brought about 
by the suppression of truth or the circulation of falsehood, by 
the assassination or the public burning of human beings. We 
may presume that the history of the order shows acts which 
were performed according to this principle, and that some of 
its members thought and acted in accordance with it. It is 
but fair to say, however, that such persons exist in every 
party. Indeed, we may say that every party, be it merely a 
literary sect or a school of philology, in a certain sense ac- 
cepts the motto : There can be no salvation except in us. 
Bat, we must also add, the order surely contained members 
whose consciences did not permit them to draw such a con- 
clusion. Most likely the Society of Jesus, like other societies, 
was neither made up of saints only, nor yet of scoundrels or 
" men in wickedness " (Manner an Bosheit), as a Protestant 
historian calls them, but of human beings. And, a defender 
of the order might add, there is a very obvious reason why 
such a maxim should have come to be regarded as their 
special property. The stronger a party, the more trouble- 
some it is to its opponents ; and the greater and more sur- 
prising its victories, the more surely will they be attributed 
by its opponents to the employment of dishonest means. 1 

1 I call the reader's attention to a book written by a Jesnit, Father B. Duhr, 
Jesuit Fables (Jesuitenfabeln) , 2d edition 1892, which gives a long list of ex- 
amples, extending to the present, to show that the enemies of the order 
have themselves acted in accordance with the principle that the end justifies the 



240 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

5. Another objection to the teleological moral philosophy is 
the following. It is contended that the teleological view can- 
not explain the absolute importance attached to particular acts 
by genuine ethical feeling. If the violation of the moral laws 
is to be avoided solely on account of the effects, why should an 
offence whose effects are manifestly utterly insignificant, pro- 
duce such violent emotional reactions in the agent and the 
spectators. Pestalozzi tells us an interesting story in his 
Lienhard and Gertrude. The oldest son of the mason's 
starving family takes a few potatoes from the field of a rich 
neighbor, bakes them in ashes, and shares them with his 
brothers and sisters. His old grandmother, who is on her 
death-bed, becomes alarmed and excited at the discovery of 
the theft ; she cannot die in peace until the boy confesses his 
sin to the neighbor and obtains his forgiveness. Now, if the 
teleological theory is correct, how shall we explain the dis- 
proportion between the intensity of the emotion and the 
insignificance of the harm done ? The neighbor will not miss 
the few potatoes, and it is somewhat fantastic to fear that a 
boy might, by taking them, undermine the institution of 
property. Hence, the objector might continue, making a 
practical application, if the theory were to become universal, 
it would result in shaking the authority of the moral laws, 
or lessen the fear of violating them. 

I shall not attempt to offer a psychological explanation of 
the emotional reactions following the infraction of the moral 
law until I reach the chapter on Duty. 1 All I can say here 
is that they do not result from a computation of the damage 
done or feared, and that it is hardly to be supposed that this 
will ever be the case. I shall simply endeavor to justify the 

means. The annihilation of the Jesuits is a consummation devoutly to be 
wished, hence everything that is calculated to lower them in the eyes of men is 
a priori believable ; at all events it is unnecessary to make any investigation, 
and one is doing the world a service by circulating the slanders about them. 
[For some of the literature on the subject gee Runze's Ethik, p. 208. — Tr.] 
* Chapter V. 



GOOD AND BAD 241 

intensity and absoluteness of the feelings of aversion and re- 
morse, which are aroused by intended or accomplished offences, 
from the standpoint of teleological ethics. 

It is said that a Greek sage, when asked by a friend why he 
had punished his son so severely for some trivial offense, re- 
plied : And do you regard habit as trivial ? His words con- 
tain the answer to the objection urged against our theory. If 
the particular act were an isolated act, it might, indeed, be of 
little moment. The important thing, however, is that it tends 
to form a habit, from which similar acts afterwards result. 
I once read a striking remark made by a Frenchman : Conse- 
quences would not be so important if they did not in turn 
become causes. It is true, the trivial act of the boy in our ex- 
ample may not have injured the neighbor, indeed, it may not 
have harmed any one, no one might ever have heard of it. 
But one person it would certainly have injured, the boy him- 
self, had not the damage been averted by penitence and 
punishment. He would have remembered how he once suc- 
ceeded in overcoming want, and if he had ever found himself 
in trouble again with the same opportunities of getting out 
of it, he would have recalled his past experience and acted in 
the same way. Having stolen once, he would have become an 
habitual thief, and then a professonal thief. Perhaps, it would 
not have come to this. Nevertheless, the first, apparently harm- 
less, transgression was the first step in that direction. No one 
ever stole anything for the first time with the intention 
of becoming a thief ; certainly not, he simply wanted this one 
thing, this so desirable, so absolutely necessary thing ; but the 
result was inevitable. — No one ever told his first lie intending 
to become a liar ; no drunkard ever began as a drunkard, — he 
began with a single spree, and with the firm resolve to guard 
against its recurrence in the future. And every subsequent 
state of drunkenness began with the first glass and the firm 
resolve that it should be the last. But the second glass and 
the second spree and the second lie and the second theft came 



242 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

of their own accord, finding the door wide open to admit them. 
Innocence is a negative term, but a positive thing. The first 
trangression breaks down the barrier which separates the good 
path from the evil one. Nowhere is this more apparent than 
in the sphere of sexual life, as the term innocence ( UnschuloT) 
in the narrower sense implies. With the first false step we 
enter upon the downward path which leads to an abyss. You 
will be careful and not fall down ? That is what the thou- 
sands believed who were dashed to pieces at the bottom of 
the pit. " The first is free to us ; we 're governed by the 
second," 1 is the law of the evil spirits. And of the good 
ones too. After the first temptation has been overcome, 
the danger of the second is only half as great. The first 
victory which we win over ourselves is the hardest, every 
ensuing struggle becomes easier, until at last we do the right 
without effort. 

This is the first reason why each particular act has such 
great moral influence. In performing it, we are not merely 
deciding the case at hand, but somehow determining our whole 
course of life. This is true not only of the first decision, 
although it is of especial importance, but of every subsequent 
one. Each decision leaves a deeper imprint upon our nature, 
until it becomes absolutely impossible to counteract it. 2 

But there is another reason. Not only does every act tend 
to create a habit in the agent, but it likewise tends to produce 
a similar habit in the surrounding individuals, and thereby to 
make the habit of the individual a characteristic of the race. 
This is brought about in two ways: by imitation and retaliation. 

Everybody knows how great is the force of example. Cer- 
tain plants produce germs which are carried through the air 
until they fall upon fertile soil and grow. Similarly, we may 
say, good and evil deeds produce germs which permeate the 
moral atmosphere until, passing through the eyes and ears of 
men into human souls, they fall upon rich ground and thrive. 

1 Faust. 2 [See James's chapter on Habit.] 



GOOD AND BAD 243 

This mode of dissemination is peculiar to acts which do 
not immediately affect the agent himself, but others. An 
attempt is made " to get even," first, with the person who has 
done the good or evil deed, and then with any one who may 
happen to come along. Darwin tells us of an Australian 
whose wife died, and who could find no rest until he had 
killed a woman of another tribe, in retaliation for her death, so 
to say. This seems to be a very unnatural method of pro- 
cedure, and yet it is practised, to some extent, by all human 
beings. When a man has been injured or treated unkindly, 
and cannot revenge himself upon the responsible party, 
either because the latter cannot be reached or is not known to 
him, he usually visits his anger upon the first individual who 
happens to cross his path. We all know this, and get out of 
such a person's way. Some one or other has palmed off a 
counterfeit half-dollar on a man. You may wager ten to one 
that, however honest he may be, he will attempt to pass it on. 
The " public " has swindled him, it is a lawful act of self- 
defence to return to the public its counterfeit coin. But acts 
of politeness and kindness are no less contagious. A stranger 
does me a favor ; I have forgotten my pocketbook and he pays 
my car-fare ; I feel impelled not only to thank him, but also to 
be kind to other strangers. 

Nowhere are good and evil more easily transmitted than in 
the family ; nowhere is the power of example more effective, 
and retribution more sure to follow. What we receive from 
our parents we pay back to our children. Good training and 
bad training are both hereditary. 

Hence, an examination of the moral judgments pro- 
nounced upon human acts and qualities universally leads 
to the conception of universal welfare as the principle which 
governs all determinations of value. 

6. Let me supplement these reflections by briefly showing 
that the other path which moral philosophy can pursue and 
has pursued leads to the same goal. The question : What is 



244 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

the ultimate end of willing? likewise suggests the answer: 
The welfare of the individual and of his surroundings. 

There is a view which claims in opposition to this that the 
will naturally aims, not at universal but at egoistic or indi- 
vidual welfare. Everybody strives for what is agreeable or 
useful to him, regardless of whether it hinders or furthers 
the welfare of others. This idea formulated into a theory 
is egoistic or individualistic utilitarianism. Hobbes is the 
first modern representative of the view that the will of every 
animal is directed towards self-preservation ; that self-preser- 
vation is the law of its nature; that whatever benefits it is 
good, and whatever is good for others is good for it only in 
so far as it is a means to its own preservation. 

I do not believe that we can maintain this theory without 
flying in the face of the facts. The egoistic, self-preservative 
impulse undoubtedly plays an extremely important part in life ; 
and only too frequently does it assert itself at the expense 
of others' interests. But no one is an egoist in the sense 
of caring exclusively for his own weal and woe, and of being 
utterly regardless of the welfare of others. There are at least 
a few persons in his immediate surroundings whose good is as 
dear to him as his own, whose welfare he is ready to pro- 
mote, at least if it can be done without endangering his own 
interests. Indeed, most persons will, in a measure at least, 
even be ready to sacrifice their own interests for the sake of 
a small group ; they will be willing to give up some of their 
comforts in order to help it. Some men, finally, are so 
deeply interested in the weal and woe of others, not only of 
those closely related to them, but even of utter strangers, as 
to be governed by sympathy in their entire conduct. We 
also notice that individuals are directly interested in the wel- 
fare of society as a whole. Whenever an individual betrays 
his country for gain, the indignation aroused shows how 
violently the instincts of the masses resent it. Hence, we 
may say in general : The will universally aima at individual 



GOOD AND BAD 245 

and general welfare, in quite different combinations, it is true, 
but yet so that neither element is ever entirely lacking. We 
call those persons unselfish who, in an unusual degree, sub- 
ordinate their own interests to those of others ; we call those 
egoistic whose regard for the interests of others falls consider- 
ably below the average. The union in one will of selfish and 
social impulses, of idiopathic and sympathetic feelings, is an 
expression of the biological truth that the individual is not 
an independent individual being, but a member of a collective 
whole. This objective relation appears subjectively in the 
constitution of the will and the feelings. Even in the animal 
world the impulse of self-preservation is invariably accom- 
panied by the generic impulse, the impulse to produce and 
preserve offspring even at the sacrifice of individual life. 
In human life, the generic impulse, if we may so designate 
all will-impulses that are rooted in the relation of the individ- 
ual to the species, is expanded and intensified. The individual 
is conscious of forming a part of the whole ; he regards him- 
self as belonging to a family, a community, a people; he 
adopts their purposes into his own will ; his interests are so 
closely interwoven with the general interests as to be insepar- 
able from them in his consciousness. We may therefore 
designate, as the goal of his willing, the universal welfare 
inclusive of individual welfare, or individual welfare within 
universal welfare. There are, it is true, certain persons 
whose social impulses are so poorly developed as to be almost 
entirely absent, persons who are indifferent to the weal and 
woe of their surroundings, nay, who delight in the injury of 
others' interests. But this is no more an objection to the 
view than the existence of idiots is a contradiction to the 
truth of the proposition that man possesses reason and 
speech. Physicians and anthropologists agree that an in- 
dividual incapable of sympathetic feelings is as much of a 
monstrosity as an idiot. 

So much, for the present, in reply to the theory of individ- 



246 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

ualistic egoism. After the concept of welfare has been more 
clearly denned, I shall come back to the antithesis between 
egoism and altruism. Here I should simply like to state that 
I cannot ascribe the importance to the matter which many 
moral philosophers ascribe to it. Schopenhauer and his fol- 
lowers regard it as the cardinal question in morals. The 
natural man is absolutely egoistic and therefore without 
moral worth; only such acts are moral as have for their 
sole motive the weal and woe of others. But since such moti- 
vation is really impossible in nature — for how can the will 
be influenced by what does not concern it ? — all morality is 
really supernatural. 

I do not believe that the world in which we live is so mys- 
teriously arranged. There is a place for the will even within 
the natural order. Only so pessimistic a judge of empirical 
human nature as Schopenhauer can regard compassion as 
supernatural. Schopenhauer somewhere says in one of those 
climaxes by which he loves to dazzle credulous readers : " The 
natural man would, if forced to choose between his own de- 
struction and that of the world, annihilate the whole universe 
merely for the sake of preserving himself, this drop in the 
ocean, a little while longer." — I do not know whether any one 
would make such a choice on the spur of the moment. But I 
do know that there is not a man living who would not regret 
his choice immediately after the destruction of the world, and 
who would not wish to be freed from a useless and unbearable 
existence. Even the greatest egoist would then see that he 
was not intended by nature for complete isolation. He would 
need other beings if only to be admired, feared, or envied by 
them. But the individual hardly exists whose relations to 
humanity are completely exhausted by these feelings, who has 
not some one whose weal and woe is not altogether immaterial 
to him or merely fills him with antipathy. And we may say 
that the welfare of the overwhelming majority is so closely 
interwoven with the welfare of others, of their relatives, 



GOOD AND BAD 247 

friends, and people, that they cannot fare well, either objec- 
tively or subjectively, without these. Such absolute egoists 
exist only in theory and not in reality ; they are mere speci- 
mens, so to speak, prepared by moral philosophers to prove a 
theory, and a false theory at that. 

In a certain sense, of course, egoism is inevitable. Even 
the most unselfish man desires the welfare of others because 
their welfare is not immaterial to him. The furtherance of 
the weal of others or the alleviation of others' woe is a source 
of satisfaction and relief to him. Indeed, if it were not so, 
if the welfare of others did not concern him, it could not 
become an object of his willing. My will can be moved only 
by my feelings ; I cannot have and feel the feelings of others. 
In this sense the ego remains the centre of things. It will 
not, however, be necessary to show that this is not what we 
mean when we speak of selfishness or egoism in the usual 
acceptation of the term. These words mean the inability to 
feel the misfortunes of others, or to rejoice at their welfare. 
Only an abstract moral philosopher, one who regards the con- 
tradiction of the natural will as the essential characteristic of 
duty, or the exclusion of all satisfaction as the condition of 
moral worth, will be troubled by the fact that the promotion 
of others' welfare is invariably accompanied by a feeling of 
selfish satisfaction. These are fruitless quibbles indulged in by 
an intellect that no longer deals with the things themselves, 
but merely endeavors to uphold a system. 

Let me add another statement. It has been said that the 
teleological moral philosophy cannot explain self-sacrifice, 
that a man like Regulus in the Roman legend contradicts 
the theory. 

I can see no difficulty here, provided we do not regard 
absolute egoism as a part of the theory. Regulus, who 
returns to his Carthaginian captivity after having warned his 
friends against concluding a peace which would have given 
him his freedom, may be explained as easily by the teleological 



248 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

as by the formalistic theory of ethics. He was undoubtedly 
actuated by a grand purpose, a purpose that bore him up and 
gave him strength ; he desired to give to his people a glorious 
and never-to-be-forgotten example of heroic sacrifice of private 
interests for the public weal, and at the same time to show 
the enemy the proud dignity and grandeur of his country in 
his own person : Behold, such sons are begotten by Rome, 
who know how to die for the glory of the city, not only on 
the field of battle, but under the hands of the torturers ! The 
consciousness of such a purpose, the conviction that such 
glorious effects will follow, produces heroes. I do not regard 
it as proved that the dry consciousness of duty : One must 
not break one's word, can do the same. 

Besides, it might be added, every real sacrifice is at the 
same time self-preservation, namely, preservation of the ideal 
self. What did Regulus want, what was the real aim of his 
willing ? His life ? Why, of course, but that does not mean 
the preservation of this particular physiological mechanism, but 
action in peace and in war, in the service of his country. To 
increase the greatness and glory of the Roman people : that 
was all that life meant to him, that alone would satisfy his 
will-to-live. And how could his purpose have been better 
realized than in the way marked out by fate — than by glori- 
fying his people and himself in bravely and proudly choosing 
to die. 

7. Let me sum up. The conduct of a man is morally good 
when it tends to further the welfare or the perfection of the 
agent and his surroundings, and is accompanied by the con- 
sciousness of duty. It is, on the other hand, morally repre- 
hensible when it lacks both of these characteristics of goodness, 
or at least one of them. In case the objective quality is 
absent, it is called wicked Qschleeht), and in case the agent is 
conscious that it is contrary to duty, it is called bad (hose), 
especially if it tends to injure the welfare of others. 

We call a man good when he fashions his own life in 



GOOD AND BAD 249 

accordance with the ideal of human perfection, and at the 
same time furthers the welfare of his surroundings. We call 
him bad when he has neither the will nor the strength to do 
anything for himself or for others, but, instead, disturbs and 
injures his surroundings. 

Virtues and vices, then, are to be explained as the different 
aspects of the good and bad man. Corresponding to the 
different problems of life we have a number of different capa- 
cities or virtues, which represent so many forces of the will 
tending to solve them. Opposed to them are the vices which 
express so many incapable wills. 

The concept good, therefore, always presupposes a relation ; 
it means good for something. According to common usage, 
a thing is good when it is capable of doing its work properly, 
of realizing its purpose. Similarly, when applied to man, 
the term signifies the ability to accomplish something. A 
good manager, a good soldier, a good citizen, a good friend, a 
good father, is one who efficiently performs the functions of a 
father, citizen, friend, soldier, or manager. The word good 
means the same in morals : a good man is a man who effi- 
ciently solves the problems of individual and social human 
life. 

The term loses its relative character only when applied to 
the whole ; the perfect life of society, perfect reality in gen- 
eral, is not good for something else, but good in and for itself. 
But every individual thing is good for something ; every par- 
ticular act or virtue, every particular human being, is good 
for something ; they have a purpose or object in the whole, 
and are therefore good in so far as they realize it. * 

But we must add: In so far as, in the moral world, the 
individual thing is not an indifferent means of realizing an 
external end, in so far as the individual man is himself a 
member of the moral whole, he forms a part of the highest 
good, and is, as such, an end in himself, like the highest 

1 [See Spencer, Data of Ethics, chap. III. — Tk.] 



250 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

good. And the same may be said of the virtues : In so far as 
they represent aspects of the good man, they are not merely 
external means to an external end, but themselves a part of 
the perfect life and highest good. Similarly, moral acts, the 
expressions of virtues, are at the same time realizations of 
the purpose, and not merely external means. 

As in a work of art or fiction everything is both a means 
and an end, so it is in the moral world. In neither case are 
the means external : they are always also parts of the end. 
In both cases, however, the whole is the absolute end, and the 
worth of the parts depends upon their usefulness for the 
whole. We show the necessity of a verse or scene in a drama 
by proving that it is indispensable to the whole. So, too, we 
prove the necessity of a virtue or a duty by showing that it is 
indispensable to life, to the perfect life of the individual and 
society. 

It must be observed, however, that the individual need not 
be conscious of this relation in order that his conduct have 
moral worth. The good old mother mentioned above, who 
despised theft simply because it is against the eighth com- 
mandment, is as moral in her willing as the philosopher who 
understands the teleological necessity of the institution of 
property for human life. For, after all, it is not his insight 
that keeps him from stealing, but his inherited and acquired, 
instinctive aversion to theft. 



CHAPTER II 

THE HIGHEST GOOD. HEDONISTIC AND ENERGISTIC 
CONCEPTIONS i 

1. In the preceding chapter we were led to the notion of 
welfare. By that term we meant the highest goal of the will 
and the ultimate principle underlying our moral judgments. 
It is also called the highest good. In what does welfare or the 
highest good consist ? 

We have already declared that the highest good of an indiv- 
idual as well as of a society consists in the perfect development 
and exercise of life. This, of course, is a purely formal defin- 
ition, but we cannot make it more specific. It is as impossible 
to define the perfect life as it is to define a plant or animal 
species. We can simply give a description of it : this it is the 
business of the doctrine of virtues and duties to do. 

Before giving a more detailed account of this conception, 
however, 1 deem it wise to discuss another view of the nature 
of the highest good. An influential ethical school contends 
that welfare or the highest good does not consist in the objective 

1 [For criticism of hedonism, see : Plato's Philebus and Bk. IX. of the Republic ; 
Aristotle, Ethics ; Kant ; Lecky, chap. I, ; Darwin, Descent of Man, chap. IV. ; 
Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, Pleasure and Desire ; Bradley, Ethical Studies, 
Essays III. and VII. ; Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, Bk. II., chap. II., Bk. III., 
chaps. I. and IV., Bk. IV., chaps. HI. and IV. ; Martineau, vol. II. ; Murray, 
Handbook of Ethics, Bk. II., Part I., chap. I. ; Simmel, Einleitung in die Moral- 
wissenschafl, vol. I. chap. IV. ; Hyslop, Elements of Ethics, 349-385 ; also the 
ethical works of Calderwood, Bowne, Muirhead, Mackenzie, J. Seth. For hedon- 
ism, see Democritns ; Cyrenaics ; Epicurus ; Locke, Essay, Bk. II., chap. XX., 
§§ 1 ff., chap. XXI., §§ 42 ff. ; Bk. I., chap. HI., § 3 ; Bk. II., chap. XXVIII., 
§§ 5 ff . ; Hutcheson ; Paley ; Hume ; Bentham ; James Mill ; J. S. Mill ; Sidg- 
wick ; Barratt ; Bain ; Hodgson ; Fowler ; Gizycki ; all of whom are mentioned 
in the historical part of thiB work. See also Santayana, The Sense of Beauty, 
1896. — Tr.] 



252 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

content of life, but in the feeling of pleasure which life pro- 
cures ; that pleasure is the thing of absolute worth, and that 
everything else has value only in so far as it conduces to 
pleasure. This view is commonly called hedonism ; the theory 
opposed to it we have called energism. 

The antagonism between these two schools is of long stand- 
ing; it runs through the entire Greek philosophy. On the 
one side are the Cyrenaics and Epicureans; on the other, 
the followers of Plato and Aristotle and the Stoics. The 
same antithesis appears in modern philosophy. On the one 
side we have the empirical psychologists ; on the other, the 
older rationalistic thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries, and the German philosophers who follow Kant. 
According to the former, the subjective feeling of pleasure, 
regardless of how it is produced, is the absolute good ; accord- 
ing to the latter, it is the objective development of individ- 
ual and social human life, regardless of whether it yields 
pleasure or not. Of course, they add, such a life is actually 
experienced with inner satisfaction. 

I do not regard it as superfluous to preface my examination 
of hedonism with the statement that the question at stake here 
is : Is the hedonistic view true or false ? and not, Is it good 
or bad ? The attempt to prove the falseness of this theory by 
calling it immoral is old. In an old maxim of the Stoic 
school both hedonism and atheism are repudiated in this 
way. 1 

That is not a legitimate argument. Theories are bad only 
in so far as they are false. The orator will hardly be willing 
to abandon the method of proving their falsehood by their 
immorality, but philosophy cannot afford to employ it. Let 
me add that pure and moral men have never been wanting 
among the representatives of this view. Epicurus lived a 
blameless life, while Bentham and Mill battled zealously and 

1 'HHov)) r(\os, -KopvTjs Myfia* ovk ton irpovoia, ovSk Tt6pvr\t $6yua. A 
Gellius, IX., 5. 



THE HIGHEST GOOD 253 

energetically for the realization of practical ideas, and have a 
better claim to the title of idealists, if that is a title of honor, 
than many of those who arrogate it to themselves. 

How can the assertion that pleasure is the thing of absolute 
worth be proved ? It seems to me, only by showing that 
human beings actually prize it as such. Here, at least, the 
function of the moralist is not that of a lawgiver, but that of 
an interpreter of nature. It would be absurd to say : True ; 
human nature does not esteem pleasure of absolute worth, but 
it ought to do so. And as a matter of fact all hedonists 
assert that all men, nay, that all living beings, invariably 
and universally strive after pleasure ; and that pleasure (or 
freedom from pain) is the only thing which is desired abso- 
lutely ; that all other things are desired not for their own sake, 
but as a means to the end of pleasure or freedom from pain. 

I do not believe that this view is substantiated by the facts. 
Let me first attempt to point out that the will does not 
aim directly at pleasure, but at a particular content of life, 
which in man is a human and at best a spiritual-moral 
content. 1 

What is the evidence of self -consciousness on this point ? 
Does it reveal pleasure as an end and everything else as a 
means ? Let us first make clear to ourselves what we mean 
by ends and means. I am cold and desire to get warm. I 
can accomplish my end in different ways. I can take exer- 
cise, I can put on warmer clothes, or I can light a fire. For 
the latter I can use wood or turf or coal. Here we have a 
pure relation of means to end : the end is warmth, and I 
desire it for its own sake. The means I desire only for the 
sake of the end ; in themselves they are totally indifferent ; I 

1 [For the psychology of willing see the standard works on psychology ; 
especially, Hoffding, pp. 308-356 ; James, eh. XXVI., esp. pp. 549-551 ; Ladd, 
Descriptive Psychology, chaps. XI., XXV., XXXVI. ; Baldwin, vol. II. Bain 
is the chief advocate of psychological hedonism: Emotions and the Will, pp. 
804-504 ; Mental and Moral Science, Bk. IV., chap. IV. See also Jodl, Lehrbuch 
der Psychologie, chap. XII. — Tb.] 



254 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

choose that one among them which will help me to realize 
my purpose in the quickest manner possible and at the least 
expense. Now, does the same relation obtain between all 
human activities and pleasure ? We sit down at a table 
hungry. Is pleasure our end, and is eating related to it as 
an absolutely indifferent means, like the coal in our example ? 
The lover of music goes to a concert. Is pleasure his end, 
and music the means ? Did Goethe — applying Bentham's 
formula that "the constantly proper end of action on the 
part of every individual at the moment of action is his real 
greatest happiness from that moment to the end of his life " 
— select as the means to his greatest happiness poetry and 
prose, amours with girls and women, business affairs and 
travels, scientific and historical investigations ? — Well, that is 
manifestly absurd, and no one will make such a claim. No, 
impulses and powers slumbered in him which craved for exer- 
cise and development, just like the forces dwelling in the seed of 
a plant. And when these powers were exercised and unfolded, 
pleasure ensued, but this pleasure did not pre-exist in con- 
sciousness as an end of which the other things were the means. 
The impulse and the craving for activity preceded all conscious- 
ness of pleasure. The consciousness of pleasure did not exist 
before the impulse, and produce or arouse it. Only the blase* 
and worn-out idler first experiences a desire for pleasure, 
and then looks about him for some means of procuring it. 
Healthy men do not act that way. 

Or must we ignore this apparent absurdity and boldly say 
that all desires actually aim not at the thing or action, but at 
pleasure ? James Mill, a bold and acute thinker, claims that 
we must. In the nineteenth chapter of his Analysis of the 
Phenomena of Human Mind, he teaches that desire is solely 
another name for the idea of pleasure. There is an am- 
biguity, however, he points out, caused by a process of asso- 
ciation ; the term desire is also applied to the ideas of the 
causes of our pleasures and pains. We have a desire for 



THE HIGHEST GOOD 255 

water to drink ; that is, strictly considered, a figure of 
speech. Properly speaking, it is not the water we desire, 
but the pleasure of drinking. The illusion that we desire 
to drink is merely the result of a very close association. 

This reminds me of an anecdote which appeared in the 
Fliegende Blatter. An Englishman is seated on the bank of 
a lake, fishing. A native approaches him and informs him 
that there are no fishes in the stream. Whereupon, the 
Englishman stolidly replies that he is not fishing for fish, but 
for pleasure. This man had evidently dissolved the asso- 
ciation, and regarded fishes, fishing, and pleasure in the 
light of means and end. Do other people do the same ? It 
seems to me that the mirth occasioned by his answer is a 
sufficient reply. Indeed, so far as I know, the will or desire 
is never directed upon a quantum of pleasure, but always 
and immediately upon the thing itself, the action, the change 
of condition. An idea of the thing frequently precedes the 
desire, but I never find in consciousness an idea of the 
pleasure as such, to which the thing is related as a mere 
means. Moreover, we may even say that, as a rule, the 
desire produces the idea of the thing. 

The following argument also seems to make for the view 
that the idea of pleasure does not set the will in motion. If 
it were so, we should have to expect that the more vivid and 
distinct the pleasure in consciousness, the greater the im- 
pression which it makes. Now, the pleasure is usually 
intensest immediately after the enjoyment. Hence, the desire 
for pleasure ought to be most intense at that time. The 
reverse is obviously the case. After the meal the idea of the 
enjoyment does not excite the will at all, which plainly shows 
that the impulse precedes the pleasure. The idea of pleasure is 
not the cause of the impulse or desire, but the impulse becomes 
the cause of the pleasure when it realizes its objective end. 

Consequently, hedonism would at least have to modify its 
claim and say : Although pleasure is not the conscious aim, 



256 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

it is the actual goal which, unbeknown to consciousness, 
acting like a concealed weight, really sets the machine in 
motion. The things which appear in consciousness as the 
ultimate ends — food, honor, riches — are therefore mere pre- 
texts deluding the intellect, while the will in reality always 
pursues one thing alone, and that is pleasure. A lover leaves 
his home to attend to some business. Much to his own 
surprise he comes to a place where there is a chance of 
meeting his sweetheart. And now he sees that his business 
was a mere pretence on the part of his desires to anticipate 
the objections of his reason. Does the same hold true of 
the case in hand ? Is pleasure the mistress of the will, so 
to speak, whom the will incessantly strives to meet, deluding 
the understanding with all kinds of pretexts. 1 

I know of no other way of proving this assertion than by 
showing that the will invariably realizes not the pretended 
but the real end, as happened in our example, in which the 
lover's hidden yearning was revealed by the actual attain- 
ment of the goal secretly desired by him. Can that be done? 
I do not believe it. Nay, it would be easier to claim the 
reverse : it is not the alleged secret end that is realized, but 
the ostensible one. The miser may acquire wealth, but the 
pleasure and satisfaction which he promised himself fail to 
appear. The ambitious man succeeds in obtaining rank and 
honor, decorations and titles, but the sum-total of pleasure 
procured is meagre, his desires always exceed the satisfaction. 
The reproductive impulse may lead to the propagation of 
the species, but its satisfaction brings disappointment and 
trouble to the individual. 

But, some one may say, perhaps all that is so ; neverthe- 
less the fact remains that whatever we do or strive for, we 
do or strive for because it yields or promises satisfaction. If 
it were not so, should we do it ? If there were no satisfac- 
tion and its opposite, all striving would cease, everything 

1 [See Sidgwick, Methods, pp. 53 f. — Tr.] 



THE HIGHEST GOOD 257 

would be indifferent to us. — But what else does this mean 
than that feelings of pleasure ultimately determine all dis- 
tinctions of value ? 

Indeed, of that there can be no doubt ; if there were no feel- 
ings of satisfaction and their opposites, there would be no 
distinctions of value. Good and bad would be meaningless 
words, or rather we should never use them. The proposition : 
That is good which satisfies a will, is so true that we may 
call it an identical one. But the proposition : Pleasure or sat- 
isfaction is the end for the sake of which all things are 
desired, does not seem to me adequately to express it. It is 
not satisfaction or pleasure that is desired, but pleasure is a 
sign that the will has realized what it wills. It is pure 
tautology to answer the question, What is the final goal of 
the will ? by saying that satisfaction is the goal, — as much so 
as to answer the question, How is the will ultimately 
satisfied ? by saying : By satisfaction. Of course, that is true ; 
but the information will hardly satisfy the questioner. What 
he wants to know is : What is the objective content that satis- 
fies the will ? Aristotle long ago discovered the true relation 
obtaining between pleasure and the will : Pleasure is not the 
goal, but a uniform accompaniment of the will, a sign, as it 
were, that the end has been realized. In pleasure the will 
becomes conscious of itself and its realization ; but to call this 
consciousness the good itself is as tautologous as to say : Not 
the thing, but the value which it has is valuable, not the activity 
or the sport, but the satisfaction which it yields, is satisfactory. 

The hedonistic theory appears in another phase, that is, in 
a negative form. What uniformly prompts living beings to 
action is not the idea of pleasure, but the pain or discomfort 
experienced by them. Freedom from pain is, therefore, the 
final and universal aim of all striving. 1 

1 [This is the view of Hegesias, the Cyrenaic, and of Schopenhauer. See the 
chapter on Pessimism, pp. 291 ff. of this work; also Rolph, Biologiache Prob- 
lem*.— Tn.] 

17 



258 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

But this form of the theory likewise seems to me unable to 
explain the facts. Pain and discomfort doubtless frequently 
appear in consciousness as spurs to action. The burning 
wound impels the sufferer to seek relief ; tedium {Langeweile) 
consumes the idler and compels him to seek diversion or 
troubles. But is this universally the case ? Is it always an 
actual or anticipated feeling of discomfort that urges us to 
action ? Was it a feeling of discomfort that compelled Goethe 
to make poetry, and Diirer to paint ? Is it pain that forces 
the child to play ? I do not believe we can say so. No, the 
impulse is at first painless ; the pain ensues only in case the 
impulse is not satisfied ; very often there is no sign of pain 
even at the moment when the impulse begins to act itself out. 
The peasant does not wait until hunger impels him to cultivate 
his fields ; he sees the sun rise, he breathes the air of spring, 
and can hardly wait for the time to go to work. Is this a 
feeling of pain ? It may become so when obstacles are placed 
between the desire and its satisfaction, but it is not pain. On 
the contrary, the hopeful impulse is a joyful feeling ; to look 
forward to something with pleasure is not to experience 
pain. 

Hence, I do not believe that a feeling, be it a conscious 
pain or an anticipated pleasure, is the invariable cause of 
striving and action. Nay, the reverse is the case : Impulse 
or will is primary ; feeling, on the other hand, secondary. 
Pleasure accompanies the realization of the objective end ; 
pain, its obstruction or failure. This is what biology teaches, 
as I shall show presently. 

2. The hedonistic theory also presents its thesis in a slightly 
modified form : It is not pleasure in the abstract that is uni- 
versally desired, but a pleasurable activity or a pleasure- 
giving good. Every creature at every moment decides to 
strive for and to do that of which it happens to have the most 
pleasurable idea at the time. This notion undoubtedly comes 
much nearer to the truth than the other. And yet I cannot 



THE HIGHEST GOOD 259 

accept the statement as a satisfactory explanation of the 
facts, because it lays too much stress on presentation. I 
believe, Schopenhauer is right in saying that the will does not 
originally presuppose presentation. Certainly not in animal 
life, where action is originally governed by blind striving. 
Nor does ideation play such a very prominent part in human 
life. It neither creates the original goal of the will, nor does 
it always guide the will in action. Habit is the greatest guide 
of action. Perhaps it would be safer to say : Man invariably 
does that which agrees with his purposes and wishes and at 
the same time meets with the least resistance from the con- 
stitution of his inner life and his external circumstances. 
This naturally yields him satisfaction, but whether it gives 
him the greatest amount of satisfaction possible for him at 
that moment cannot, of course, be proved. He may decide in 
favor of a life of ease ; and it is at least doubtful whether that 
would give him the maximum of pleasure. 

Moreover, I should say, the formula is apt to obliterate the 
distinction between wishing and willing. We may will what 
does not appear in presentation as pleasant or pleasurable, 
and may, conversely, reject that which, for the moment, has 
the greatest attraction for our desires. I will not deny that 
such cases may also be explained from the hedonistic stand- 
point. Nevertheless, the difference between sensuous fear and 
the respect for duty, between animal desire and moral voli- 
tion, between the pathological feeling of pleasure and the 
feeling of satisfaction with a noble deed, is so great that we 
can easily understand why many moralists regard it as a 
generic difference, which will not allow us to embrace these 
feelings under a common head. This is the view of Kant 
and Herbart, with which Steinthal agrees when he distin- 
guishes between formal and pathological pleasure. 

Finally, it must also be added that pain and painful activity 
are indispensable to human life. Hence, the notion of pleas- 
are or satisfaction would, in a measure, have to be extended 



260 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

so as to include the painful. We cannot, in my opinion, 
doubt it. If a god were to offer to eliminate from our lives 
all pain and everything that causes pain, we should most 
likely at first be strongly tempted to accept the offer. When 
we are overburdened with work and care, when pain lays hold 
upon us and we are transfixed with fear, we feel as though 
nothing could be better than a life of rest and security and 
peace. But I believe a trial would soon cause us to regret 
our choice, and make us long for our old life with all its 
troubles and sorrows and pains and fears. A life absolutely 
free from pain and fear would, so long as we are what we 
are, soon become insipid and intolerable. For if the causes 
of pain were eliminated, life would be devoid of all danger, 
conflict, and failure, — exertion and struggle, the love of 
adventure, the longing for battle, the triumph of victory, all 
would be gone. Life would be pure satisfaction without ob- 
stacles, success without resistance. We should grow as tired 
of all this as we do of a game which we know we are going to 
win. What chess player would be willing to play with an 
opponent whom he knows he will beat ? What hunter would 
enjoy a chase in which he had a chance to shoot at every step 
he took, and every shot was bound to hit ? Uncertainty, diffi- 
culty, and failure are as necessary in a game, if it is to 
interest and satisfy us, as good luck and victory. 

Well, the same holds true of life. The lion in the desert, 
suffering from hunger and thirst, frost and heat, may perhaps 
think : How happy I should be if only I could dwell in a safe 
cave with game enough about me to satisfy my daily needs. 
Before he knows it, he is lodged in a. most comfortable house 
in a beautiful garden, where he receives the best possible treat- 
ment. Even his lioness has not been forgotten. At first he 
likes the arrangement. But soon he finds his beautiful cage, 
which is constructed according to all the rules of lion-hygiene, 
somewhat narrow and tiresome. His keeper observes his 
dissatisfied mien, so a large park is placed at his disposal 



THE HIGHEST GOOD 261 

with the finest game for him to prey upon. But he soon 
wearies of the ease and certainty of the chase. He has every- 
thing, but he does not feel at ease. What is lacking ? Well, 
he is without the very things which he desired to get away 
from ; what he wants is to prowl around and to be hungry, 
the excitement of the real chase and the fight ; he misses the 
desert. — Who knows but what the sons of the desert who 
fell in the battles of Mohammed yearned for the desert and 
the strife, after enjoying the pleasures of Paradise for three 
days ? 

Poetry is a mirror of human life and of the will which 
manifests itself in it. What productions do we like best? 
Those which portray a life of ease and peace, comfort and 
universal benevolence ? Wieland's Aristippus is one of the 
few books of this kind. Aristippus and Lais, Cleonidas and 
Musarion, and whatever the names of the characters in the 
novel may be, have everything that the heart can desire. 
They are rich, they live in beautiful mansions and villas, 
equipped with everything that nature and art can supply. 
They are beautiful and strong, they are intelligent and witty, 
possessing such powers of observation and expression as never 
to be at a loss for the best sort of amusement. They have 
the happiest temperaments in the world, being equally willing 
to entertain others and to be entertained themselves ; they 
love each other tenderly but without passion, and therefore 
look upon what would excite pangs of jealousy in others with 
the equanimity of the sage, who is no more affected by the 
alteration of love than by an interesting event in nature. 
Finally, both Lais as well as Aristippus have constructed a 
system of philosophy adapted to their lives : " It is my natural 
mission," thus Lais philosophizes in a letter to her friends, 1 
a to make men happy without being married to them. It 
would be foolish modesty on my part were I to deny that I 
understand the art of making happy whomever I please, and 

1 Vol. III., fragment 26. 



262 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

that nature was not niggardly in bestowing upon me the gifts 
necessary to accomplish this. I am also willing to confess 
that the consciousness of having made a worthy man happy 
may, for a short time, arouse in me the pleasant illusion that 
I am happy too. But that both the pleasure which I give 
and the pleasure which I receive in return is indeed a mere 
illusion, — of that the few persons with whom I have experi- 
mented are as convinced as I am. This must seem unnatural 
to you honest housewives, but it is nevertheless a fact, and I 
would not have it otherwise. Nature, who, like a good 
mother, takes care that none of her children shall be treated 
too niggardly, has arranged things so that no one would vol- 
untarily exchange his ego for another's. So it is with me ; 
being what I am, I gracefully yield to Cleonis and thank her 
for having taken from me the burden of making my friend 
Aristippus the happiest of men." Accompanying the letter is 
a casket of pearls : " You will be somewhat frightened, but I 
am so rich in such trifles that you need not worry about their 
value. The pearls are absolutely alike in purity, size, and 
form. You will therefore simply have to count them and 
divide them among yourselves in a sisterly fashion. You can 
cast lots for the casket." 1 

Why is Aristippus such a tiresome book ? Because it is 

1 Some biographies remind us of Wieland's Aristippus; for instance, J. C. 
Bluntschli's autobiography {Denkwurdigkeiten aus meinem Leben, 3 vols., 1882). 
Bluntschli was a talented and amiable man, a healthy optimistic politician and 
philosopher. He took part in everything : he was grand master of the Masons, 
founder of the Protestant Society, member of the congress for the codification of 
international laws, he was First Speaker and honorable President in all the 
meetings of both societies, President of the Rhenish Credit Bank, a member of 
the Upper House in Baden, a famous Professor at the Heidelberg University, 
a celebrated writer on jurisprudence and politics, a member of seven academies, 
an honorary doctor of five universities (Vienna, Moscow, Oxford, Lahore, and 
member of the University of St. Petersburg), knight of eight or more orders, 
he was honored and congratulated on numerous anniversaries, his works were 
translated into eight languages, he was successful in everything, he met with 
only one little disappointment : in spite of repeated attempts, he never succeeded 
in becoming Prime Minister; but he bore this disappointment gracefully. — A 
happy life in truth, and an enviable one. And yet — 



THE HIGHEST GOOD 263 

untrue ? Perhaps. But why, aside from the trivial senti- 
mentalities of Lais, are we not gratified at the illusion of such 
perfect happiness ? I think it is because we ourselves should 
find such a life unbearable. It would fail to exercise and 
satisfy the most powerful impulses of our nature. Who would 
care to live without opposition and struggle ? Would men 
prize truth itself as they do, if it were attained without effort 
and kept alive without battle ? To battle and to make sacri- 
fices for one's chosen cause constitutes a necessary element of 
human life. Carlyle states this truth in a beautiful passage 
in his book on Heroes and Hero- Worship : " It is a calumny to 
say that men are roused to heroic actions by ease, hope of 
pleasure, recompense, — sugar-plums of any kind in this 
world or the next. In the meanest mortal there lies some- 
thing nobler. The poor swearing soldier hired to be shot has 
his ' honor of a soldier,' different from drill, regulations, and 
the shilling a day. It is not to taste sweet things, but to do 
noble and true deeds, and vindicate himself under God's 
heaven as a God-made man, that the poorest son of Adam 
dimly longs. Show him the way of doing that, the dullest 
day-drudge kindles into a hero. They wrong man greatly 
who say he is to be seduced by ease. Difficulty, abnegation, 
martyrdom, death, are the allurements that act on the heart 
of man." 

To be sure, they are not the only influences, we must add ; 
yet they influence all. And that is why Wieland's novel is 
tiresome, why epics and dramas which deal with passions and 
conflicts, with victory and death, irresistibly attract and move 
the hearts of men. Here they find their life's ideal portrayed 
and not in the idyllic and the bucolic. Aristotle discusses the 
question why the contemplation of the painful and horrible in 
the tragedy pleases us. He thinks it is because it arouses 
feelings of fear and compassion. These emotions, too, must 
be exercised, and, by affording an opportunity for this, the 
tragedy gives us relief. To tell the whole truth, Aristotle 



264 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

should have added that the tragedy also excites other power, 
ful emotions — anger and indignation, love of power and 
revenge, remorse and despair, love and sacrifice, magnanimity 
and mercy, triumph and courage ; in short, all the deep feel- 
ings and impulses which slumber in the heart of every human 
being. Nature, which yearns for the realization of these feel- 
ings and impulses in actual life, finds relief when they are 
sympathetically aroused by the poem. 

Then shall we say that even fear and pity may, at times 
at least and under certain circumstances, be pleasurable feel- 
ings ? And is the sorrow which we feel at the death of a 
beloved one, and which the heart would not exchange for all 
the treasures of the world, not a feeling of pain, but a feeling 
of pleasure ? I believe that would be a rather curious 
notion. No, if we may accept the evidence of self -conscious- 
ness, a maximum of pleasurable feelings or a minimum of 
painful feelings is not the goal which attracts the will of man ; 
what he strives after is to live his life in accordance with his 
ideal. Pleasure and pain are not revealed by introspection as 
the positive or negative ends of life, but as states of conscious- 
ness which accompany actions and in which the will becomes 
aware of itself and its bent. 

3. The testimony of self-consciousness concerning the 
significance of pleasure and pain is confirmed by biology. The 
naturalist has little trouble in explaining the part which 
pleasure and pain play in the economy of life. 

As for pain, we may say that it originally accompanies the 
destruction of vital processes, which may be caused by violent 
injuries or by the disturbance of the inner equilibrium. Its 
significance is obvious : it tends to preserve life by impelling 
the animal to seek safety in flight or defence. Let us suppose 
that two living beings resemble each other in every respect, 
except that one is sensitive to pain, the other not. The 
former would evidently stand a much better chance of being 
preserved, provided, of course, the conditions of life were 



THE HIGHEST GOOD 265 

equal. The latter animal would be surprised by danger and 
perish, while the former would be warned by pain and strive 
to escape from the disturbing cause. Insensitiveness to pain 
would have the same effect as the absence of a sense-organ. 
— Pleasure seems to be the original concomitant of two 
animal functions, nutrition and reproduction. In more highly 
developed animals, the pleasurable feeling extends to allied 
functions. Thus the movements which precede the taking of 
food, the chase, using the term in its broadest sense, includ- 
ing the scent, the pursuit, the seizure, the laceration of the 
prey, are also accompanied by feelings of pleasure. The 
pleasure which accompanies the function of reproduction also 
extends to the care of offspring. The significance of both 
these functions in the animal economy is very plain. They 
are the immediate conditions of preservation ; in the former 
case, of the preservation of the individual, in the latter case, 
of that of the species. Organic life consists in a continuous 
process of disintegration and reparation. Waste material is 
constantly given off, and new elements are taken up and 
assimilated. In case the latter process does not take place, 
death soon ensues. The social life of the species reveals a 
similar behavior: the waste material is constantly passing 
out, — that is, individuals die ; but the equilibrium is main- 
tained by the reproduction of offspring ; otherwise the species 
would soon disappear. 

What, then, is the significance of pleasure ? The biologist 
will not hesitate for an answer. Just as pain serves as a 
warning, pleasure serves as a bait. In pain the will becomes 
aware of danger, in pleasure it becomes aware of the further- 
ance of life. The former warns it to seek safety in flight, the 
latter, to continue on its path. Pain and pleasure are, we 
might say, the most primitive forms of the knowledge of good 
and evil. 

The will or impulse as such does not presuppose the pres- 
ence of feelings or of intelligence. The newly-hatched chick 



266 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

immediately begins to pick up grains of wheat. It surely 
does not bring along with it into its new stage of existence a 
feeling of painful hunger, or an idea of the pleasure produced 
by the introduction of food. Impulses govern action just as 
other natural forces govern the falling of a stone, or the 
formation of a crystal, or the growth of a plant. The same 
may be said of the sexual impulse. The individual who 
has just arrived at the age of puberty is driven by a blind 
impulse to exercise the functions which result in the preser- 
vation of the species, without knowing beforehand the feelings 
that will arise. Perhaps, scarcely any feeling accompanies 
the function in the lower stages of animal life. But as life 
develops, the sensibility increases ; in the higher animals and 
in man every activity is accompanied by a specific feeling. 
This feeling has either a painful or a pleasurable tone, accord- 
ing as action is retarded or furthered, according as it impedes 
or promotes life. The division of the feelings into painful and 
pleasurable is as unsatisfactory to the biologist as the classifi- 
cation of plants as herbs and weeds. Pleasures and pains 
are merely characteristic tones of feeling, which correspond to 
the different functions, or in which the functions first become 
conscious of themselves. 

In a higher stage of mental evolution intelligence rises from 
feeling and above it. Its original purpose is merely to accom- 
plish more perfectly what feeling accomplishes, that is, to in- 
struct the will concerning what is wholesome or unwholesome. 
Sensations may be characterized as anticipations of feelings. 
The sense of touch anticipates the pain occasioned by bodily 
injuries. Taste is a kind of predigestion ; it decides, before 
the object is taken into the body, whether it is wholesome or 
not. Taste is the specific feeling which accompanies the 
function of nutrition, and depends upon the peculiar nature 
of the food, or to be exact, upon the process of assimilation 
which begins on the tongue. It is always either pleasant or 
unpleasant, and consequently either excites or inhibits the 



THE HIGHEST GOOD 267 

will. Smell is a kind of preliminary taste, a taste acting at 
a distance. From the minutest particle emitted by an 
object, it tells whether the object can be assimilated or not, 
as well as whether it is friendly or hostile. The eye and the 
ear do not have to come in contact with matter ; they recog- 
nize the nature of the distant object from its slightest move- 
ments. Originally they, too, are a means to the knowledge 
of what is wholesome and unwholesome ; hence, their sen- 
sations still have feeling- attachments, pleasure and pain. 
These, however, are not very prominent ; the sensations of 
the objective senses, as the eye and ear have aptly been 
called, can hardly be regarded as direct motives of the will ; 
they guide the will by furnishing it with more remote signs 
of what is beneficial or dangerous. The understanding, 
finally, or the faculty of deducing the unknown from the data 
of perception, is almost entirely without feeling. Its primary 
purpose, however, is to assist the will in obtaining what is 
beneficial and avoiding what is harmful. 

The biologist, therefore, will not regard pleasure as the ab- 
solute end of life, but will consider both pleasure and pain as 
means of guiding the will. In the feeling of pleasure the will 
becomes conscious of the furtherance of life by the exercise 
of a function. Hence, pleasure is not a good in itself, but a 
sign that a good has been realized. Indeed, it is hard to un- 
derstand why the question, What is the significance of pain ? 
did not prevent the hedonistic conception of the significance of 
pleasure. Both of these feelings evidently belong to the same 
category. Now, if pleasure is an absolute end, what is pain '! 
Something with absolutely no purpose ? Manifestly not. 
Pain is evidently a very purposive means of warning the an- 
imal against the harmful. Pleasure will, therefore, have to 
be explained similarly. 

Finally, the biologist might also point out how decidedly 
opposed nature is to being interpreted in the hedonistic sense. 
When the impulse is satisfied, the pleasure ceases. After the 



268 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

food needed for preservation has been eaten, the feelings o A 
pleasure cease, and opposite feelings soon arise. Pleasure 
can be aroused to a certain degree, only by stimulating the 
organs which are secondarily connected with nutrition. The 
same may be observed in the impulse which tends to the 
preservation of the species. But whenever the organs of 
preservation are used as instruments of pleasure, nature pun- 
ishes the abuse with disturbances and disease, and in case her 
hints are not followed, with the destruction of the organs and 
ultimately of the individual who obstinately persists in mis- 
understanding their purpose. 

4. Pleasure, then, is not the absolute goal of the will. 
Nor does the evaluating judgment of the impartial spectator 
seem to me to make pleasure in itself, regardless of its cause, 
the thing of absolute worth. Let us suppose that we could 
distil a drug like opium, capable of arousing joyful dreams, 
without, however, producing harmful effects in the intoxicated 
one or his surroundings. Should we recommend the use of 
the drug, and praise the discoverer as having made life more 
valuable ? Perhaps not even a hedonistic moral philosopher 
would do that. Why not ? Because the pleasure is illusory ? 
But pleasure is pleasure, whatever be its cause. Or, because 
the philosopher has found out by computation that the pleas- 
ures of our sober waking life are still greater ? It would not 
be easy to prove it in the example assumed. The simple rea- 
son is that such pleasures would be " unnatural," and a life 
composed of them would no longer be a "human" life. How- 
ever rich in pleasure it might be, it would be an absolutely 
worthless life for a human will and human standards. 

Perhaps the philosopher will reply : Yes, but that is simply 
because a person addicted to such pleasures would neglect his 
duties to others, and consequently decrease the maximum of 
pleasure, even though he might greatly increase his own 
pleasure. Well, then, let us change the example a little ; let 
us suppose that the drug will, without expense and trouble s 



THE HIGHEST GOOD 2G9 

arouse in an entire people a permanent state of pleasurable 
dreams. Should we celebrate the discoverer as a benefactor 
of the human race ? Perhaps it might be shown to our sat- 
isfaction that a nation's best means of realizing permanent 
happiness would be to submit absolutely to an absolutely be- 
nevolent government. Let us suppose that a man, the Pla- 
tonic philosopher for example, had discovered the secret of 
making a nation absolutely obedient. Should we be willing 
to place our people in his power ? The Jesuits are said to 
have thought and acted for their native subjects in Paraguay 
in every regard, and to have guided them, daily and hourly, 
and according to all the rules of hygiene, in their labors and in 
their enjoyments, in their waking and sleeping. Let us sup- 
pose that they succeeded, as we are told that they did, in 
absolutely satisfying the governed. Will the hedonistic 
philosopher grant that such a regime is the most perfect and 
desirable solution of social and political problems, and that 
the life of these well-behaved and contented Indians repre- 
sents the highest goal of human striving ? If so, he will most 
likely also regard German statesmanship as having performed 
its mission when the entire German people shall have been 
transformed into a lot of well-behaved and obedient Philis- 
tines, who drink their mug of beer every morning and play 
their little game of Skat, and in the evening play their little 
game of Skat and again drink their beer, in the meantime reg- 
ularly attending to their duties in the bureau or the work- 
shop, and sleeping soundly at night. And, finally, he will 
also be compelled to recognize the sorceress Circe, who 
changed the visitors of her island into swine, into well-fed and 
thoroughly contented swine, as a benefactress of humanity, 
and deem it as the greatest blessing for any one to have been 
cast on her shores. Unless he is willing to acknowledge 
this, he must, it seems to me, confess that pleasure or satis- 
faction is not the thing of absolute worth. It is valuable only 
m so far as it follows as the result of virtuous activity ; we 



270 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

regard it as base, when it is obtained by stimulating the lower, 
sensuous side of our nature and by suppressing our higher 
spiritual capacities. 

5. Now that we have rejected the hedonistic theory, let us 
attempt to give a positive definition of the highest good. We 
may say in a most general way that the goal at which the will 
of every living creature aims, is the normal exercise of the vital 
functions which constitute its nature. Every animal desires to 
live the life for which it is predisposed. Its natural disposi- 
tion manifests itself in impulses, and determines its activity. 
The formula may also be applied to man. He desires to 
live a human life and all that is implied in it ; that is, a 
mental, historical life, in which there is room for the exercise 
of all human, mental powers and virtues. He desires to play 
and to learn, to work and to acquire wealth, to possess and to 
enjoy, to form and to create ; he desires to love and to ad- 
mire, to obey and to rule, to fight and to win, to make poetry 
and to dream, to think and to investigate. And he desires to 
do all these things in their natural order of development, as 
life provides them. He desires to experience the relations of 
the child to its parents, of the pupil to his teacher, of the ap- 
prentice to the master; and his will, for the time being, finds 
the highest satisfaction in such a life. He desires to live as a 
brother among brothers, as a friend among friends, as a com- 
panion among companions, as a citizen among citizens, and 
also to prove himself an enemy against enemies. Finally, 
he desires to experience what the lover, husband, and father 
experience — he desires to rear and educate children who shall 
preserve and transmit the contents of his own life. And 
after he has lived such a life and has acquitted himself like an 
honest man, he has realized his desires ; his life is complete , 
contentedly he awaits the end, and his last wish is to be 
gathered peacefully to his fathers. — This outline, however, 
receives its concrete content from the historical life of the 
people. Hence we may also say: Man's will seeks to ex- 



THE HIGHEST GOOD 271 

press the life of his people in an individual form, and thus at 
the same time, to preserve and enrich the life of the people. 
In this way, it seems to me, the impartial anthropologist 
and biologist would look at the matter. The will of a living 
being is nothing but a system of impulses, the exercise of 
which constitutes the life of the species. Every individual 
shares the desire of the species to preserve and promote its 
life, or rather, the species merely exists in the individuals, 
which live and act as its members. The same holds true of 
man. In his case, however, an ideal self-preservative impulse 
grows out of the primitive animal impulse of self-preservation. 
The will-to-live, which in sub-human creatures appears as 
blind impulse or striving, becomes conscious of itself in man. 
Man has a conscious idea of the life aimed at by his will ; the 
type which his life desires to express and to realize hovers 
before him as an ideal. This he strives after, this is the 
standard by which he measures himself and his activity. The 
ideal of perfection assumes a different form in different 
human beings. The ideal is different for the Greek, Roman, 
and Hebrew ; different again at Athens and at Sparta ; it is 
not the same for man as for woman, for the warrior as for 
the scholar, for the sailor as for the peasant. Only in certain 
fundamental features is it the same in all, just as the funda- 
mental anatomical-physiological type of the human body is 
common to all men. The higher the development of mental 
life, the more differentiated and individualized the inner life 
becomes ; just as the outward form, corresponding to the inner 
development, becomes more and more individualized. The 
ideal is also conceived with different degrees of clearness by 
different individuals. Individuals also differ in the power and 
certainty with which they guard their ideals against the action 
of particular momentary impulses, and govern their lives 
according to their ideals. But in some form or other such an 
ideal is present and active in every man ; the will has before it 
some picture or other of what his innermost nature desires, 



272 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

a picture which reveals itself in his mode of life and in his 
judgment of himself. 

Vor jedem steht em Bild des, das er werden soil ; 
So lang er das nicht ist, ist nicht sein Friede roll. 1 

Not only the individual, but the nation too has an ideal of 
what it desires to be. The ideal expresses itself in its religion 
and poetry. The gods and heroes represent the types of per- 
fection. At a later stage of development historical recollec- 
tions are added, and paint a comprehensive picture of the 
nation's past, a picture which forms a poetical ideal in the 
popular consciousness. But the historical collective life of an 
entire period of civilization and of the aggregate of nations is 
also governed by ideas. Types of character and life spring 
up, gain possession of all hearts, move the thoughts of men, 
and, at last, control affairs. Think of the Humanistic move- 
ment in the fifteenth century and its new ideal; of the 
Reformation and its new type of Christian faith and life ; or 
of the age of Louis XIY. and its ideal of power and dignity, 
of the French Revolution and its new ideal of a natural and 
rational mode of life. New ideas of human culture realized 
themselves in these great historical epochs, and seizing the 
individual wills, forced them into harmony with it. 

Here we plainly see that the will unconditionally strives to 
realize the idea or the type. A people desires freedom, or 
power or honor, or whatever catch-word may designate the 
cherished ideal, and desires it absolutely, not for the sake of 
something else, say pleasure or happiness. True, all action 
tending towards the realization of the ideal yields satisfaction. 
But no one cares whether this represents the greatest amount 
of pleasure obtainable by the whole. A nation does not 
reckon the cost of its ideal, it does not compute how much 
happiness may be won or lost in a war for its freedom or its 
honor, or even for its position among other nations. In order 
to realize its controlling ideal, it recklessly sacrifices the 

1 Riickert. 



THE HIGHEST GOOD 273 

interests and lives of individuals. And the individuals them- 
selves desire it ; even though they dread the sacrifice as indi- 
viduals, as members of the nation they desire that their 
country remain true to itself and its ideal. 

The historical judgment, like the historical will, is deter- 
mined by this goal. A nation does not judge its own past by 
the standard of pleasure ; it judges historical persons and 
events by the ideal which it happens to have at the time, and 
determines their worth accordingly. Thus our judgment of 
Frederick the Great and his wars is not based on a computa- 
tion of the pleasures and pains which they caused, but upon 
the honor and dignity which the German people achieved 
through them. We ask ourselves, has the nation made any 
advance towards its objective goal ? Our age answers the 
question in the affirmative ; the prevailing notion of the objec- 
tive end is the German Empire on a Prussian basis. The 
scientific historian follows the same plan. It never enters 
his head to balance pleasures and pains against each other. 
Indeed, this notion is a mere fancy in the heads of a few 
philosophers. But, so far as I know, not one of them has ever 
tried to apply it in practice. 

6. The view here advanced of the final goal of the human 
will and the ultimate standard of our judgments of value is 
not new. It was thought out and definitely formulated long 
ago, by Greek moral philosophy. Indeed, we may say that 
all great ethical systems, with the single exception of hedon- 
ism, advocate it. Plato and Aristotle expressly state : The 
highest good is life and action in harmony with the idea ; the 
eudsemonia of a man consists in the possession and exercise 
of all human virtues and capacities. The Stoa teaches the 
same : Life according to nature is the end of every being ; for 
man, therefore, a life conforming to human nature, that is, to 
reason, is the absolute end ; in it he finds his welfare (evpota 
yStou). Thomas Aquinas teaches the same : Every being seeks 
it« perfection in accordance with its nature ; rational creatures 



274 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

seek it through the rational will, sensible creatures through 
the sensuous impulse, insensible ones through the natural 
impulse. The same conception reappears in Hobbes and 
Spinoza. According to them, self-preservation is the goal ; 
only, a living being preserves itself by living and acting, and 
a thinking being, Spinoza insists, by thinking. Similarly, 
Shaftesbury and Leibniz declare that the harmonious devel- 
opment of capacities and powers is the law of man as well as 
of the universe. Kant, too, might be called as a witness for 
this theory : The real and innermost essence of man expresses 
itself in a will, determined by the practical reason or the 
consciousness of duty, and acts in accordance with its nature. 
Likewise Hegel and Schleiermacher regard the great histori- 
cal content of human life as a thing of objective value ; in so 
far as the individual participates in it he gives a meaning and 
value to his life and at the same time satisfies the deepest 
longings of his nature. 

Darwin, who in a certain sense continues the attempt of 
Speculative Philosophy to reach an historical conception of 
the entire universe, and tries to solve the problem by new 
methods, reaches a similar conclusion from the biological 
standpoint. In the fourth chapter of his work on The 
Descent of Man, he examines the hedonistic theory and 
flatly contradicts it. Pleasure-pain, he concludes, is neither 
the motive nor the end of all action. I quote the passage in 
question : " In the case of the lower animals it seems much 
more appropriate to speak of their social instincts as having 
developed for the general good than for the general happi- 
ness of the species. The term, general good, may be defined 
as the rearing of the greatest number of individuals in full 
vigor and health, with all their faculties perfect, under the 
conditions to which they are subjected. As the social in- 
stincts both of man and the lower animals have no doubt 
been developed by nearly the same steps, it would be advis- 
able, if found Dracticable, to use the same definition in both 



THE HIGHEST GOOD 275 

cases, and to take as the standard of morality, the general 
good or welfare of the community rather than the general 
happiness." 1 Finally, I should like to mention that John 
Stuart Mill, unconsciously, so closely approximates the 
thoughts developed above that there is no longer an essential 
difference between the two views. By assuming qualitative 
differences in pleasures besides quantitative differences he at 
last reaches the following formula : " It is better to be 
a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied." 2 It seems 
to me that Mill thereby tacitly abandons the principle that 
pleasure and satisfaction are the only absolutely valuable 
things. It is no longer pleasure as such that is valu- 
able, but the functions to which it is attached. When Mill 
speaks of the different kinds of enjoyment, he really means 
the different functions, the exercise of which is accompanied 
by different feelings in different creatures. 

Hence, the old Aristotelian definition of the final goal or 
the highest good seems to me to be as satisfactory to-day as it 
ever was : Eudoemonism or welfare consists in the exercise of 
all virtues and capacities, especially of the highest. 2 

7, But, some one may say, has not this entire discussion been 
moving in a circle ? At first it was said that the value of virtue 
consisted in its favorable effects upon the development of life. 
And now it is held that the value of life consists in the nor- 
mal performance of all functions, or in the exercise of capac- 
ities and virtues. Is not the exercise of virtue thus made an 
ultimate end again, after having first been conceived as a 
means ? 

I repeat what was said before : the statement is true. But 
the same relation everywhere confronts us in the organic 

1 [Part L, chap. IV., Concluding Remarks, p. 120. — Tr.] 

2 [Utilitarianism, 11th ed., p. 14. — Tr.] 

3 [See also Stephen, Science of Ethics, chaps. IV., IX., X. ; Jhering, vol. II., 
pp. 95 ff. ; Wundt, Ethik, pp. 493 ff. ; Hoffding, Ethik, VI. ; Williams, Review of 
Evolutional Ethics, Part II., chap. IX.; Ziegler, Sittliches Sein und sittlichn-s 
Werden. — Tr.] 



276 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

sphere ; here everything is both a means and an end, or a 
part of the end. Heart and brain, hands and eyes, muscles 
and bones, are means of preserving bodily life; but they 
are at the same time parts of the body. The body does 
not exist apart from its organs or the means of its self- 
preservation ; it is composed of these. The functioning of 
each organ is a means of preserving life, and life at the 
same time consists in the functioning of all the organs. 
The same remarks apply to a work of art. The particular 
scenes in a drama are essential to the whole, otherwise they 
would be mere superfluous episodes, but they are at the same 
time necessary parts of the whole, which is simply made up 
of all its parts. So, too, in the moral sphere, every excel- 
lence or virtue is an organ of the whole, and at the same 
time forms a part of life ; it is therefore, like the whole, an 
end in itself. The mental-moral life is an organism in which 
every power and every function is both a means and an 
end ; everything is valuable in itself, but everything receives 
additional importance from its relation to the whole. Courage 
has value for life as a means of solving certain problems ; it 
cannot be conceived as an isolated element, any more than 
the eye can exist for itself, but only as the organ of a living 
body. Just as sight, however, is valuable in itself, so is the 
exercise of courage in battle, from which no life can be free, 
for, as the poet says : Ein Mensch sein, heisst ein Kampfer 
sein. The same may be said of all virtues, that is, of all 
positive virtues, for the negative virtues, if we may call them 
so, the virtues of not-lying, not-stealing, and not-committing- 
adultery, are valuable solely as means. To refrain from such 
acts is not good in itself, but merely a means to the goods 
which they subserve : truth and property and marriage. The 
positive virtues, on the other hand, the love of truth, the 
sense of justice, and the domestic virtues, are all both means 
or instruments of the perfect life and parts of its content. 
Tirtues or capacities which are exercised in the acquisition of 



THE HIGHEST GOOD 277 

knowledge and in the service of the truth, in labor and in the 
accumulation of wealth, in the regulation of social affairs, in 
family life and in the rearing of children, are means to life 
and at the same time constitute important parts of it. 

The Stoics long ago observed this truth. They divided goods 
into three classes — goods which have absolute worth, goods 
which have value as means, and, finally, goods which have 
value both as means and ends (rcov a<ya6wv ra jxev eivai reXi/cd, 

TCt $6 TTOLVTiKCL, TCL $€ TTeXlKCL KCll TTOL^TLKa). 1 AH external 

goods are efficient goods (ttocvtiko). All kinds of actions 
done according to virtue and the accompanying feelings of sat- 
isfaction are final goods. Virtues are both efficient and final ; 
for inasmuch as they produce perfect happiness (ev&aifiovla), 
they are efficient, and inasmuch as they complete it by being 
themselves part of it, are final. 2 

And now, we may go on and say : All virtues and excel- 
lences are both means and ends in themselves, but not all of 
them are so in the same degree. Not all the members or or- 
gans of a living body are equally necessary, just as some 
scenes in a drama more nearly express the leading thought 
or idea of the play than others. Similarly, some functions in 
moral life occupy a more central, others a more peripheral, 
position ; some are secondary means, while others have their 
purpose in themselves. 

Aristotle recognized this truth. The central purpose of a 
creature is the exercise of its specific nature or power. Now, 
man's peculiar characteristic is the exercise of reason. Hence, 
the function of scientific knowledge, that is, philosophy, con- 
stitutes the central purpose of human life. The exercise of 
the ethical virtues, all of which are based on practical reason, 
comes next ; further down in the scale comes the exercise of 
the economic and finally of the animal functions ; they are 

1 [Of goods some are final, some are efficient, and some are both final and 
efficient.] 

2 [Diogenes Laertius, VII., 57. Engl, translation by C. D. Yonge, pp. 
294 f. —Tb.] 



278 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

the necessary pre-conditions or natural foundations of real 
human life. The naturalistic view is confirmed by the direct 
testimony of feeling : man finds the greatest satisfaction or 
evhaijjLovla in a life consisting of the exercise of the theoretical 
and practical reason. 

The evolutionistic theory, with its principle that the later 
form is at the same time the higher one, suggests a similar 
arrangement. In the lowest stages of animal life, action 
consists solely in the search for food and the endeavor to es- 
cape unfavorable external conditions. Gradually the repro- 
ductive functions, with the care of offspring in rudimentary 
form, and, on the other hand, intelligence, at first in the form 
of sense-perception, are added. The foundations of social and 
intellectual life are now laid. They reach their highest de- 
velopment in man. Their evolution forms the chief content 
of the only part of the history of progress of which we have 
some direct knowledge, — namely, through historical recollec- 
tion, — that is, the history of humanity. Now, what has taken 
place in the historical life of humanity, what is its essential 
content ? We have reached a more comprehensive and deeper 
knowledge of reality, and we have developed a more compre- 
hensive and more complicated social organization. Corre- 
sponding to this growth of function we necessarily have a 
perfection of powers: reason, the function by which the 
knowledge of things is attained and the will is guided in the 
kingdom of ends, and social virtues, the functions upon which 
the family, the state, and society depend, constitute the 
essence of man as a historical being. 

That human life will therefore be the most valuable which 
succeeds best in developing the highest powers of man and in 
subordinating the lower functions to the higher. A life, on 
the other hand, in which the vegetative and animal functions, 
sensuous desires and blind passions, have control, must be re- 
garded as a lower or abnormal form. A perfect human life 
is a life in which the mind attains to free and full growth, and 



THE HIGHEST GOOD 279 

in which the spiritual forces reach their highest perfection in 
thought, imagination, and action. This is, of course, possible 
only in human-historical surroundings. Hence, we must in- 
clude among the essential faculties of life the social virtues, 
whose purpose it is to create peaceful and mutually beneficial 
relations between the agent and his immediate and remote 
human environment. Wisdom and kindness, so says common- 
sense, are the two sides of perfection. Yet we must guard 
against a false spiritualization. The sensuous and even the 
animal side have their rights. The pleasures of perception 
and play which throw such a glamour around childhood, also 
belong to life ; nay, we shall not exclude the pleasures of 
eating and drinking and kindred functions from the perfect 
life ; only they must not presume to rule it. 

We may now extend this conception of means and ends be- 
yond the limits of individual life. A perfect human life is an 
end in itself. But it is at the same time a part, and hence, a 
means of a larger whole, a national life, a sphere of civiliza- 
tion. In his Republic, Plato conceives the state as a human 
being on a larger scale, and discovers in it the same general 
functions and powers. The individual is related to the com- 
munity as means to end, as a means, however, which is, at 
the same time, a part of the end, for the whole merely exists 
in the totality of individuals. We now obtain a new standard 
of value for the individual : the greater and higher the services 
which he renders to the whole, the more he contributes to the 
mental-historical life of his people by providing it with good 
institutions, by honoring it with noble deeds, by enriching it 
with true and good thoughts, by adorning it with beautiful and 
elevating works and symbols, the greater is his value and the 
more highly will he be appreciated by history. Moral worth 
in the narrower sense does not depend upon this ; it is deter- 
mined by the faithfulness and devotion with which the indi- 
vidual fulfils his mission, be it great or small. Here the good 
will is the standard of measurement, and this even the poor 



280 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

in spirit may fully possess. Here, again, we must guard 
against a false spiritualization. We are not to understand 
that the value of a nation is to be judged solely by what it 
achieves in science and philosophy or in art and poetry. Our 
times are perhaps inclined to overestimate these things. A 
nation likewise needs its warriors and statesmen to defend it 
and to advance its external interests, its merchants and sailors 
to open up new countries and oceans to commerce and to create 
fruitful relations with foreign nations, its inventors and arti- 
sans to discover and practise their countless arts, its peasants 
and laborers to till the fields and to feed the steeds, and its 
mothers to rear its children in love and faith, and the children 
themselves who play about the streets. All these belong to 
the nation ; they are not merely the external basis without 
which there could be no spiritual life, but form a part of its 
life. Indeed, this perfect spiritual life is produced by them as 
well as for them. The creative leaders and the receptive 
masses exist for each other. 

We may, finally, also regard the nations themselves as 
members of a higher unity. Mankind, the concrete expres- 
sion of the idea of humanity in the infinite variety of the 
peculiar and beautiful forms of which the latter is capable, 
is the ultimate goal in our empirical conception of the highest 
good. Perfect humanity, or, in Christian phraseology, the 
kingdom of God on earth, is the highest good and the final 
end to which all nations and all historical products are 
related as means, not as indifferent means, it is true, but as 
organs or parts of the end. This will also furnish us with 
the highest criterion for judging the nations and different 
stages of civilization : their value is measured by the degree 
in which they serve to realize and express the idea of humanity. 
Although no nation and no stage of civilization is absolutely 
worthless, they nevertheless differ in value and importance 
according as the development of their social-political, mental- 
moral, artistic and religious life approximates this idea. 



THE HIGHEST GOOD 281 

It is not hard to see, of course, that we have now reached 
a concept which we cannot realize. We cannot give a con- 
crete exposition of the idea of humanity ; all we can do is to 
outline it by means of the general concepts of a historical- 
mental life. All anthropological and historical investigations 
furnish us with materials, but we cannot construct the idea : 
we cannot form an idea of the contents of the humanity-life 
in which the contents of the lives of all races and peoples, 
of the Greeks and Romans, Egyptians and Babylonians, 
Chinese and Japanese, of the countless Negro and Indian 
tribes, shall be included as teleologically necessary means of 
realizing the idea. The divine poem, as the history of 
humanity has been called, surpasses our comprehension ; 
we observe isolated fragments and compare them, but we 
cannot grasp the unity of the poem, the idea of the whole, 
which will explain the necessity of the members or frag- 
ments. The so-called philosophy of history has attempted 
to gather the fragments into a whole, and to interpret them 
from the standpoint of the whole. It has, however, not 
succeeded in doing more than making a schematic arrange- 
ment of them ; taking the narrow circle of civilization em- 
bracing antiquity and the Middle Ages and the beginnings 
of modern times, it has at most been able to point out a 
historical connection here and there which may, to a certain 
extent, be regarded as teleologically necessary. And there 
is evidently little hope that this science will ever attain to 
greater perfection in the future. Even the history of the 
past is highly fragmentary ; literature, which Goethe once 
called the fragment of fragments, is apparently the best 
preserved portion of historical tradition. But even if we had 
a clear and complete survey of the entire past history of the 
human race, we should probably possess but a very insignifi- 
cant fragment of the whole : the future would be lacking. 
Perhaps the history of humanity is in its first beginnings ; 
perhaps the historical life of particular nations and civiliza- 



282 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

tions is but a prelude to the real historical life of a united 
humanity, for which the modern era is preparing, and which 
in our age, with its enormously developed means of com- 
munication, seems so close at hand. Perhaps the centralized 
world-market and the universal postal system are the fore- 
runners of the coming unification of the mental-historical 
life of humanity. Under these circumstances, how can we 
presume to understand the plan of universal history which 
shall enable us to assign to each particular element of his- 
torical life its place within the whole, as we understand the 
particular parts and verses of a poem, which are essential 
means of realizing the idea of the whole ? 

It is still more difficult to give a concrete conception of 
the ideal when we insert the life of humanity into another 
greater and more comprehensive reality, and characterize it 
as a part of a total life of the All-Real. Here we are dealing 
entirely with schematic concepts which absolutely transcend 
the imagination. The inconceivable and ineffable we can 
express only symbolically ; in so far as we desire to char- 
acterize the All-Real as the highest good we call it God. 
And its manifestation in a world of mental-historical life, 
which is embraced in the unity of its spiritual essence, we 
call the kingdom of G-od. These concepts do not, like the 
concepts of science, comprehend reality as it is given to us 
in perception. Nay, they do not really belong to the domain 
of knowledge ; they merely indicate the direction in which we, 
as feeling and willing beings, are moving when we attempt to 
complete our conception of reality. They express our belief 
that all reality tends to some highest end. If the idea of a 
divine plan in the history of humanity already transcends our 
comprehension, how much more must this be the case with 
the divine world-plan! All attempts to define it theoreti- 
cally result either in the trite enumeration of a few empiri- 
cal facts and the reversal of the causal order, as in the 
teleology of the last century, or in the barren logical con- 



THE HIGHEST GOOD 283 

struction of general concepts, as in Hegel's philosophy. 
The understanding can never grasp the contents of the 
highest good. The symbols of religion and art endeavor 
to render it accessible to the feelings ; by means of the 
finite and comprehensible, they suggest the infinite and 
incomprehensible. 

Im Innern ist ein Universum auch ; 
Daher der Vblker loblicher Gebrauch, 
Dass jeglicher das Beste, was er kennt, 
Er Gott, ja seinen Gott benennt, 
Ihm Himmel und Erden ubergiebt, 
Ihn fiirchtet und womoglich liebt. 

8. G. von Gizycki has entered a protest against the views 
expressed in this chapter, in the name of the hedonistic 
theory. 1 I confess that his remarks have not changed my 
opinion ; nor do I dare to hope that my reply will induce any 
one to give up his theory. There is something like habit 
even in our thinking ; whoever has become accustomed to 
look at things in a certain way will regard different concep- 
tions as a mechanic regards a tool to which he is not used, 
and will reject them as unsatisfactory. I am, of course, like 
other people in this respect. It is impossible for me to think 
that the thing of absolute worth is not the objective content 
of life, but the feeling of satisfaction with which it is expe- 
rienced, and that the former is merely an indifferent means 
to the latter. The value seems to me to lie in the thing 
itself and not in the recognition of the value by the feeling 
of satisfaction. By the objective content of life I do not 
at all mean the vegetative organic processes constituting 
bodily life, as another somewhat too hasty critic has as- 
sumed. I mean by it, above all, the mental life, which ap- 
pears in human beings as rational thinking and rational 
willing and acting, plus the feelings which are attached to all 

1 In an elaborate review of this book in the Sunday supplement of th« Vosrische 
Zeitung, February, 1889. 



284 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

conscious processes. I deny that this feeling element is the 
thing of absolute worth; it belongs to the phenomena of 
inner life, but not as their absolute end. 

However, I do not desire to repeat what has already been 
said ; I simply wish to say a word on one point. Gizycki con- 
tends that my system of ethics has no criterion for measuring 
the worth of acts and qualities, since it rejects the only pos- 
sible one : the feeling of pleasure or happiness. Hence, he 
declares, it has no right to speak as it does of higher and 
lower powers and actions. 

I believe, however, that it possesses such a standard : the 
standard is what has been called the normal type, or the idea, 
of human life. To be sure, this type cannot be defined as 
accurately as a mathematical concept, and yet it exists and 
has its function. Our judgment of the symmetry and beauty 
of the bodily form is based upon the fact that we uncon- 
sciously compare it with a normal type. Similarly, our judg- 
ment of the mental-moral form rests upon comparison with 
a normal type of the inner man. The same is true of the 
conscience, which pronounces upon one's own life ; its judg- 
ments are based upon the comparison of actual life with an 
ideal. So far as I can see, we never measure the value of a 
life, be it an individual or a social life, by employing a method 
which might be designated as the method of computing the 
balance of pleasure. The same fact may be observed in 
practical affairs. In choosing his remedies, the physician 
does not first consider the balance of pleasure, but inquires 
into their effect upon the functions of life. What, he asks, 
is the effect of bodily exercise, of baths, opiates, etc., upon 
the functions of life and upon the organs ? Nor does the 
educator ask whether such and such methods of discipline 
or instruction will give the pupil the greatest possible amount 
of pleasure, but whether they will develop his intellectual and 
moral capacities. The politician does the same. A measure 
is discussed in a legislative gathering; one party favora it; 



THE HIGHEST GOOD 285 

the other opposes it ; neither party bases its conclusions upon 
a computation of pleasures, but upon the supposed favorable 
or unfavorable effects of the measure upon the development 
of the people along the line of their ideal. 

Is this a defect ? Is such comparison with a normal type a 
crude and merely provisional method, and must philosophy 
substitute for it the more perfect method of the balance of 
pleasures ? 

It appears to me that if this is so, then the problem of phi- 
losophy is a rather hopeless one. Our means of finding such a 
balance of pleasure are, in my opinion, exceedingly poor, and 
I do not look for any great improvement along these lines in 
the future. Bentham's scheme of measuring the quantum of 
pleasure is still waiting for some one to apply it, and will, I 
believe, have long to wait and in vain. 

What ethics actually and universally does is this : it at- 
tempts to analyze and describe the normal type of which we 
have spoken. The doctrine of virtues, the fundamental part of 
ethics, gives such an analysis, and the doctrine of duties differs 
from it only in form ; it gives us a general description of 
the function of the virtuous character. Just as dietetics 
describes the normal functions of the body, and points out 
their importance for life, so moral philosophy describes the 
normal functions of man as a rational, volitional being, and 
shows their value for individual and collective life, calling at- 
tention, at the same time, to disturbances and deviations, and 
indicating how they may be avoided and counteracted. It like- 
wise distinguishes between the more and the less important 
phases of life, between the controlling and the subordinate 
functions. Dietetics is satisfied, without entering upon a 
computation of pleasures, that the spinal column is a more 
important part of the body than a finger or a tooth, that the 
action of the heart has a greater significance for life than the 
tear gland, that the proper care of the functions of nutrition 
is more important than the cut of one's hair. Similarly, 



286 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

ethics, considering the conditions and relations of human his- 
torical life, is convinced, without calculations of this kind, that 
self-control and justice are more important than polite man- 
ners, that the functions of the teacher and judge are worth 
more to a people than those of an opera singer or acrobat. 

In his Ethics Gizycki modifies the hedonistic theory as fol- 
lows : The highest subjective goal of life, he says, is the sat- 
isfaction produced by the consciousness of having done the 
right, or the feeling of a good conscience. Doring agrees with 
him when, in his Guterlehre, he defines the highest good as the 
proper regard for self, or the satisfaction of the desire for indi- 
vidual worth. — We see thus that the difference between the 
various conceptions of morality may be practically insignificant 
or may entirely vanish. The question is a purely theoretical 
one. But for this very reason it seems proper to me to say : 
Life itself and its healthful, virtuous, and beautiful activity is 
the absolutely desirable and valuable thing, not the isolated 
feeling-reflex accompanying it. Feelings, of course, exist 
and belong to life, but not as the absolute good ; they are not 
the final motives of the agent's will, nor the truly valuable ele- 
ments in the judgment of the spectator. 

The difference between Gizycki's conception and my own 
has, as he himself assumes, its ultimate root in psychology. 
He attributes my error to a false psychology, and corrects it 
by referring me to Bain and others. Well, I confess, despite 
all my respect for the English thinkers, I do not believe that 
the analytical psychology has said or will say the last word on 
this subject. A mere analysis of conscious processes — which, 
moreover, fails to confirm the hedonistic view — does not 
go to the root of the discussion. It must be supplemented by 
biological reflections, and these do not show us that the will 
is primarily determined by pleasures and pains, and is their 
product, as it were, but favor the view advocated by Schopen- 
hauer : that a particularly determined will, a specific will 
(em Wesenwille~), to use Tonnies's term, is the fundamen- 
tal fact of all psychical life. 



CHAPTER III 

PESSIMISM i 

1. Before taking up the second fundamental concept of 
ethics, the concept of duty, I should like to consider a theory 
which occupies an important place in the thoughts and delib- 
erations of the present: pessimism. Pessimism opposes the 
view advanced in the foregoing chapter, that life itself, or the 
normal exercise of all vital functions, is the thing of absolute 
worth, and asserts : Life has no value ; or, if it contains valu- 
able elements, their sum is so far exceeded by the worthless 
ones that the total value falls below zero, and hence, it is 
better not to live than to live. 

The Italian poet Leopardi pathetically expresses this mood 
in the lines " To Myself." Let me quote them : 

" Rest forever heart ; enough 
Hast thou throbbed. Nothing is worth 
Thy agitations, nor of sighs is worthy 
The earth. Bitterness and vexation 
Is life, and never aught besides, and mire the world. 
Quiet thyself henceforth. Despair 
For the last time. To our race fate 
Has given but death. Henceforth despise 
Thyself, nature, the foul 

Power which, hidden, rules to the common bane, 
And the infinite vanity of the whole." 2 

1 [Sully, Pessimism, A History and a Criticism ; Sommer, Der Pessimtsmut 
*nd die Sittenlehre ; Pliimacher, Der Pessimismus in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, 
(History and Criticism.) — Tr.] 

2 [I have taken this translation from Sully's Pessimism, p. 27. — Tit.] 



288 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

In so far as these lines represent the real feelings of the 
poet, they are, of course, incontrovertible, — just as incon- 
trovertible as the lines of Matthew Arnold; 

" Is it so small a thing 
To have enjoyed the sun, 
To have lived light in the Spring, 
To have loved, to have thought, to have done ; 
To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes ? " * 

Feelings are not true or false ; they are facts which can be 
analyzed and explained, which may be considered praise- 
worthy or detestable, but not refuted. 

The case is different where pessimism aims to be a phil- 
osophical theory. Schopenhauer does not merely desire to 
express the feeling that he finds nothing in life, but he tries 
to prove that there is nothing in it, and that whoever finds 
anything in it deceives himself. He gives reasons, and 
reasons, unlike feelings, can be examined, and may, if false, 
be refuted. The argument will not necessarily change the per- 
sonal mood of the pessimist, but it will destroy the validity of 
his theory. Such an examination I propose to place before 
the reader. Unless I mistake its value, it will show that 
philosophical pessimism is not a proved theory, whose propo- 
sitions can lay claim to universal validity, but the expression 
of individual feelings, and as such can be merely subjectively 
true. 2 

We may divide the attempts which have been made to prove 
pessimism into two classes : the sensualistic-hedonistic and the 
moralistic. By the former I mean the argument which en- 
deavors to show that life yields more pain than pleasure, 
and concludes from this that it is worth less than nothing. 

• l Poems, IT., 32 : Empedocles on Etna. 
2 [For philosophical pessimism see : Schopenhauer, The World as Will and 
Idea, vol. L, Book IV. ; vol. II., Appendix to Book IV. ; Parerga, chaps. XL, 
XII., XIV. ; Mainl'ander, Die Philosophic der Erlosung ; Hartmann, Die Philo- 
sophic des Unbewusiten ; Zut Geschichte und Begrundung des Pessimismut, etc.— 
Tb] 



PESSIMISM 289 

The latter adds that life, considered objectively and morally, 
has no value, and that it is therefore not only unhappy, but 
deserves to be unhappy. I also mention a third form : the 
proof from the philosophy of history ', which tries to show that 
as life develops, especially with the progress of civilization, 
pain and immorality increase. 

2. The hedonistic argument contends that human life yields 
more and greater pains than pleasures. It is evident from 
the very nature of the case that such an assertion can be 
proved only by statistics. A phrase frequently used by the 
most recent pessimistic writers would seem to imply that 
such an argument can really be made; they speak of a 
balance of pleasure, which is against the value of life. The 
term is borrowed from commercial language. The merchant 
adds up the debit and credit accounts of his ledger, and 
strikes the balance. It would appear from the phrase that 
the pessimistic philosopher employs a similar method, that he 
keeps books, as it were, entering on opposite sides, under the 
headings, pleasure and pain, the respective amounts yielded 
by life ; that some day he posts his books, and finds that the 
total of the pain-columns exceeds the total of the pleasure- 
columns. 

I do not know whether such an attempt has ever been 
made ; I have discovered nothing of the kind in the writings 
of the philosophical pessimists with which I happen to be 
acquainted. And yet it seems to me no method could furnish 
so convincing a proof that the thing is possible as the 
attempt to post the items even of a single day of a human 
life. Imagine the average day of an average human life 
treated according to such a scheme ! We might have an 
account like the following : A. Receipts in Pleasure : 1. 
Slept well — equal so many units ; 2. Enjoyed my break- 
fast — ; 3. Head a chapter from a good book — ; 4. Received 
a letter from a friend — ; etc. B. Pain : 1. Read a disagree- 
able story in the paper — ; 2. Disturbed by a neighbors 



290 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

piano — ; 3. Received a tiresome visit — ; 4. Ate burnt soup 
— ; etc. — The philosopher is requested to insert the amounts 
in the proper places. 

But that is an absurd and childish demand, you say ! I 
certainly agree with you that it would be an absurd under- 
taking. But the demand itself does not seem to be absurd. 
If it is wholly impossible to make a statistical estimate 
of the pleasure and pain quanta, how can the assertion be 
proved that the pains exceed the pleasures ? If it is impos- 
sible to fix a definite value for the separate items, how can the 
value of the totals be compared ? If we are utterly unable to 
handle the simplest cases, if we cannot even say whether the 
pleasure yielded by a good breakfast is greater or less than 
the pain occasioned by burned soup, how can we make even the 
faintest conjecture in more difficult cases ? How can we, if 
we are unable to compute the results of a single day, dare to 
assert anything concerning the results of an entire life, and 
then not of a single individual life, mind you, but of all human 
lives ? 

In his novel, Four Germans, Melchior Meyer gives the his- 
tory of two young men who grow up together under the same 
conditions, with the same prospects and demands on life. 
They study together, they are friends, and hold essentially 
the same views. At the end of their college days, the differ- 
ences in their natures begin to manifest themselves. The 
one enters the government-service ; he becomes an affable 
and capable official, and soon discards such notions as are 
considered objectionable in high circles. He begins to rise 
more rapidly ; he enters the Cabinet, becomes the son-in-law 
of the Prime Minister, and finally Prime Minister himself. 
His friend, who has a more reflective nature, follows a uni- 
versity career ; he becomes a privat-docent and a writer. 
Caring only for his own convictions, he refuses to be gov- 
erned by the prevailing opinions. Before knowing it, he 
becomes unpopular, the orthodox thinkers begin to shake 



PESSIMISM 291 

their heads. His influence wanes, his books are not read, as 
is natural, for he has written them for himself. At the age 
of thirty and thirty-five, he is still living in destitute circum- 
stances. His father grows impatient, his mother grieves ; 
then comes the year 1848, and places both young men in 
new circumstances, — which we need not mind now. What 
shall we say of the balance of pleasure in these two lives up 
to this point ? I do not believe that these are particularly 
difficult cases ; and yet who would dare to decide which life 
had yielded the most happiness ? Who can measure the ratio, 
in the life of the former, between the pleasures following the 
satisfaction of ambition and the pain inseparable from the 
fears and hopes of preferment, the disappointment accom- 
panying the attainment of vain goods ; and who can compute 
the relation, in the other life, between the quiet joys of the 
thinker and the pains caused by neglect and outward 
failure ? 

The pessimists, therefore, have never even attempted to 
prove their assertions, as demanded by the nature of the case. 
They offer us general phrases instead. Listen to some of 
them. First we are told the old story that pleasure is in the 
last analysis nothing but freedom from pain ; that it invariably 
arises only when a desire is satisfied, when a disease is cured 
or a fear removed. Pleasure, so it is held, is therefore nega- 
tive in its character, while pain alone is positive ; there 
are in reality no figures in the pleasure-column of our imagi- 
nary ledger ; one hour differs from another merely in the 
amount of pain suffered. — Now if this were really true, if 
we really regarded as pleasure what is only freedom from 
pain, would that in the least alter the fact that pleasure and 
pain are positive feelings ? And is not the feeling, after all, 
the final and absolute judge ; would it not be absurd to claim 
that pleasure is nothing but freedom from pain ? All that 
we could say would be that it never arises except when 
preceded by a painful desire. This statement, however, 



292 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

would be obviously false. Is appetite pain? Is it not 
rather an anticipation of pleasure, and is it not felt as such 
by the healthy man ? With eager eyes the child watches his 
mother baking cakes; does he experience pain, and is this 
silenced only after he has eaten the cake ? Does he, after 
waking from a healthy sleep, soon experience painful tedium, 
and does he get rid of the feeling only after it has forced him 
to play ? No one can believe such a thing unless he ignores 
the facts and makes up his mind to see nothing but the pro- 
positions of his system. — Besides, the falsity of the view 
may be shown in another way. If pleasure were freedom 
from the pain of desire, it would have to be the greater, the 
greater the desire has been. That is by no means always the 
case. On the contrary, the individuals who have the strongest 
desires experience the least pleasure after realizing them. 
The people who wait most patiently enjoy the purest and 
intensest pleasures, when they obtain what they neither asked 
for nor expected. We see this in children; I believe it 
always happens that the greater the desire, the less pleasure 
its satisfaction yields. 

Schopenhauer proves pessimism by reference to the nature 
of the will, which per se is unintelligent, aimless striving. 
It is not originally moved by the idea of an end, but appears 
as a blind will-to-live. Hence, he says, there can be no state, 
no good, which can give the will definite satisfaction. This 
determines the nature of the feelings : pain and misery, dis- 
appointment and tedium are the inevitable result. The pain 
which is caused by need urges the will to action; in case 
it does not realize its end, the pain becomes torture. If it 
realizes its end, the relief is momentarily felt as pleasure. 
But soon this disappears ; possession, which from a dis- 
tance promised permanent satisfaction, soon fails to arouse 
feelings of pleasure ; hence the end of all pleasure is disap- 
pointment. In case the will endeavors to put an end to this 
restless striving, tedium soon goads it into preferring misery 



PESSIMISM 293 

and torture to a state of rest. These are the feelings between 
which the will constantly oscillates. We might, therefore, 
compare life to a foot-path running between two thorny 
hedges, a path so narrow that when the wanderer attempts 
to avoid one of the hedges, he is invariably torn by the 
other. 

Impartial judges will regard this view as extremely one- 
sided. Perhaps no life is absolutely free from suffering and 
tedium, but many an existence will, for some days, be almost 
entirely without them. The path between the hedges is not so 
narrow as to make it impossible for any one but an unusually 
awkward man to pursue it without serious injury. A healthy 
child, reared in simple, healthy surroundings, will not know 
very much about distress and tedium when leaving the parental 
home. And if the conditions of life continue half-way favor- 
able, he may not experience them to any great extent for 
many years to come. The peasant does not wait for want to 
urge him to his work. In the daytime he rejoices at what 
he has accomplished, and at night he enjoys his rest. It 
would be a vain undertaking to make him believe that the 
former is pain and the latter tedium. And so work-days and 
holidays, summer and winter may come and go, year in and 
year out, without bringing great troubles and without leaving 
much opportunity for tedium. Of course, some sorrows will 
come, but we also find that sorrows turn into blessings. 
Hence, we might perhaps quote, at the end of such a life, 
the words of the Psalmist, in a slightly modified form : The 
days of our years are threescore years and ten ; and if by 
reason of strength they be fourscore years, and if their 
strength be labor and sorrow, yet they have been sweet. — Are 
such lives mere isolated exceptions ? Inasmuch as we have 
no statistics on the happy and unhappy lives, the successes 
and failures, I am for the present inclined to put as much 
faith in the judgment of a plain man of the people as in the 
eloquence of a pessimistic philosopher. The plain man would 



294 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

most likely argue somewhat as follows : If an honorable and 
healthy life is not an exception, then a happy life is not an 
isolated exception either. The will, as described by the phi- 
losopher of pessimism, is not the will of a healthy human 
being, but that of a moody and spoilt child, and such a will 
may perhaps experience the things mentioned. 

But, Schopenhauer replies, it may be that some lives are 
fairly successful in avoiding collisions ; but does that change 
the fact that life as a whole is an empty, aimless striving? 
We may, he believes, compare life to the struggles of a 
shipwrecked mariner, who for a few moments struggles with 
all his might to save himself from drowning, only to be en- 
gulfed by the waves at last. Life is a ceaseless battle with 
death, to which we are approaching nearer and nearer every 
day. And the hopelessness of this futile business is increased 
by the cruel irony of nature, which deludes us with the con- 
stant promise : " To-morrow there will be a change for the bet- 
ter ! " If only I were a man, sighs the unhappy schoolboy ; if 
only my examinations and apprenticeship were over, and I had 
an independent position and fortune, says the youth chafing 
under restraint ; if only I were a millionaire or a privy coun- 
sellor, cries the troubled man, how I should enjoy life ! And 
all these wishes are ultimately fulfilled, but the satisfaction 
never comes. Yet the illusions continue, until old age car- 
ries the last ones into the grave. But long before this, the 
cycle has begun anew in children and grandchildren. Does 
not the will-to-live play us a miserable trick ? The tortures 
described by Greek mythology, the Sisyphus stone, the barrel 
of the Panaides, the wheel of Ixion, represent life itself, not 
the exceptionally unhappy life, but the average life of all mor- 
tals, whose absolute futility is experienced every day and yet 
remains forever new. 

Indeed, it is true that the will-to-live is aimless in the sense 
of never attaining to a state of absolute satisfaction ; it is true 
that it daily looks forward to the morrow, expecting from it 



PESSIMISM 295 

what today has failed to bring ; it is true, also, that death 
comes at last, and that life does not produce as a recompense 
for its troubles an absolutely permanent good that may be 
possessed and eternally enjoyed or bequeathed to others. — 
But does that not prove the worthlessness of life ? — It seems 
to me that an error has crept into the argument. Life is 
here conceived as a function which has its end, not in itself, 
but external to it. This is an inadequate conception. It is 
customary to compare life to a journey. We regard the 
latter as futile when the purpose for which it was under- 
taken fails to be realized, and we look back upon our fruitless 
troubles with dissatisfaction. But does life resemble a busi- 
ness trip ? I do not think so. It has not, like the latter, an 
external end, an end of which it is the means. Nay, life is not 
a means, but an end in itself. We could, with much better 
right, compare it to a pleasure trip. The latter too, we 
may say, is aimless, and yields no lasting gain. We may also 
say that we are never satisfied while it lasts, in the sense of 
being willing to remain at one place forever. The desire is 
always in advance of the traveller, fixating a point in the dis- 
tance, and when this is reached, new desires arise. Even 
before setting forth he thinks of the remote summit, and when 
he ascends the mountain, groaning and perspiring, his longing 
eyes, deceived by many a projecting ridge, are turned in the 
direction of the goal. But hardly has he reached his destina- 
tion, when his desires again temptingly point to the inn with its 
promise of rest and recreation and final satisfaction. Tired, 
exhausted, and foot-sore, the traveller at last reaches his 
abode, and hardly enjoying a few moments of the hoped-for 
rest, begins to make plans for the morrow. So it goes 
day after day, until he comes back to his home, and rests 
his weary limbs under his own roof. Now, was the entire 
journey merely one continuous torture, and will our trav- 
eller swear never to enter upon such a foolish undertaking 
again ? No, indeed ; he has had an excellent time ; he joy- 



296 CONCEPTS AND PKINCIPLES 

fully remembers every part of his travels, especially the most 
dangerous and difficult parts, and enjoys the pleasure of mak- 
ing plans for another trip next year. 

Well, the arguments against the value of life prove no more 
than the same arguments against the value of a pleasure trip. 
In spite of its aimlessness, in spite of its illusions and disap- 
pointments, in spite of its pains and exertions, in spite of the 
fact finally, that we never reach a stopping-place where we 
could bear to abide permanently, it may be a very enjoy- 
able affair on the whole. So long as it is full of action and 
change in work and in play, full of care for self and others, 
the mind will delight in recalling the memories of the past, 
lingering with special satisfaction upon the dangerous and 
tempestuous, troublesome and difficult parts of the traversed 
journey. In achieving this the will realizes the goal at which 
it aims : an honorable human life with all the experiences 
belonging to it. 

Old people delight in narrating incidents from their lives, 
either by word of mouth to their friends, or to the world at 
large in printed autobiographies. Would they feel inclined 
to do so if life were a Sisyphean labor ? They evidently re- 
gard it in a different light, as an interesting drama, perhaps, 
full of action and excitement for both actor and spectator, 
which, in spite of its troubles and conflicts, its happy and 
dangerous crises, at last comes to a peaceful ending. The 
excitement is over, the actor in the play breathes more 
freely ; as a spectator he now rehearses the contents of the 
drama in his mind. — Would he be willing to play the role 
again ? Schopenhauer believes that if we were to ask the 
dead in their graves whether they would be willing to live 
again, they would shake their heads. Perhaps he is right ; 
who would be willing to witness a play once more, immedi- 
ately after having seen it performed ? But that surely does 
not prove anything against the value of the drama. We 
should not be willing even to repeat the experiences of the 



PESSIMISM 297 

most delightful journey, immediately after having reached 
home. — Besides, is it so rare a thing to hear old people 
expressing the wish to be young again ? The mature man 
does not desire to be a youth again, the youth does not wish 
to be a boy again, the boy does not wish to be a child again ; 
but many an old man wishes to be young again. Is it not 
because he has enjoyed his rest, and now has the courage to 
begin the journey afresh ? 

I cannot, therefore, convince myself that the statement: 
Life uniformly brings more pain than pleasure, more disap- 
pointment than satisfaction, — the subjective evidence of feel- 
ing declares it to be valueless, — is proved by these reflections 
of the philosophers of pessimism. 

3. The moralistic argument asserts that life is as worth- 
less as it is unhappy, that it is absolutely devoid of any- 
thing that, objectively considered, can make it worth living. 
Virtue and wisdom are the exception, wickedness and fool- 
ishness the rule. Schopenhauer does not weary of abusing 
mankind in this strain. Nature, he is fond of saying, 
produces human beings in bulk, like worthless factory wares, 
and throws them away in bulk, in accordance with the 
maxim of wholesale production, as cheap and bad. Malice 
and ignorance are the two characteristic qualities of the 
average man. Mediocrity is more conspicuous among the 
masses ; the many are poverty-stricken wretches, with no 
higher spiritual desires, intent only upon eking out their 
miserable existence to the very last. Their sole aim is to 
procure food, and perhaps to produce progeny for the same 
unhappy lot. Grovelling in the dirt, they live on, and when 
they are gone the very trace of their existence is wiped out. 
Nor are they free from an admixture of malice : they look with 
envy and hatred upon those who excel them in mental and 
physical gifts, or in wealth and rank. Only with great ef- 
fort can the police keep them from attacking each other. As 
wild beasts must be kept apart by cages, men must be pro* 



298 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

tected against each other by criminal laws, cages whose bars 
are forged by fear. Whenever an opportunity is offered of 
cheating a fellow sufferer or inflicting damage upon an 
envied one, without danger of punishment, it is immediately 
embraced. Even their so-called virtues are, when rightly 
viewed, made of the same stuff. They are sociable from van- 
ity, compassionate from self-love, honest from fear, peace- 
loving from cowardice, benevolent from superstition. — There 
is a small minority among whom malice preponderates over 
ignorance, and since greater intelligence is usually connected 
with a stronger will, the laws are invariably powerless to re- 
strain them from pouncing upon the others, like beasts of 
prey. The many are like sheep, cowardly, stubborn, and nar- 
row ; the few like wolves and foxes, ferocious and deceitful. 
— Wisdom and virtue, on the other hand, are rare products. 
Nature scarcely succeeds in producing two or three geniuses 
in a century, and saints are equally few and far between. 

Thus Schopenhauer, the despiser and accuser of the human 
race, describes, with passionate eloquence, its moral and intel- 
lectual shortcomings. He is not the only man who entertains 
this opinion. Ever since the old Greek sage declared that 
"the most are worthless," the sentiment has been con- 
stantly repeated. Hobbes holds the same view of man, and 
La Rochefoucauld has given us, in his Reflections and Maxims, 
a kind of hand-book of philosophical medisance, which, in ever- 
changing periods, proclaims selfishness and vanity as the real 
motives of human nature. Nor did Kant have a very favor- 
able opinion of human beings. 

Are these views correct ? Again I ask : How can their 
truth be proved ? In my judgment, ultimately by statistics 
alone. The assertion that there are more wicked men than 
good ones, more fools than sages, can be proved only by a 
census. We have only to make such a demand to see the 
impossibility of the undertaking. Interesting though such 
an investigation would be, the classes bad, wise, and stupid 



pessimism ayy 

mil never appear in the census lists. We may measure age, 
height, and wealth ; for moral and intellectual qualities there 
is no method of measurement. Every judgment concerning • 
the average value of men is therefore purely individual and 
subjective ; it depends upon the experiences of the person • 
judging, and the standard which he applies to man. The 
judgment can lay a certain claim to universality only in case , 
it can be proved that the investigator's demands were normal, 
and that he had such favorable means for making observa- " 
tions as to give his personal experiences an average value. . 
Have those who proclaim the unworthiness of the great mass ■ 
of mankind fulfilled these requirements ? 

We may divide the accusers of human nature into two 
groups : on the one side, we usually find courtiers and men of 
the world ; on the other, philosophical recluses. 

We are in the habit of saying that people who live at court 
have a knowledge of the world and human nature. Is court- 
life a suitable environment for the study of human nature ? 
At court we become acquainted with men who live at court. 
Is the life of these men a normal life, and can we expect from 
them a normal behavior ? It seems to me to be more than 
doubtful. La Rochefoucauld made his observations at the court 
of Louis XIV. Perhaps there never was a better medium for 
breeding vanity and selfishness than the court at Versailles. 
Read Taine's description. The entire nobility of France were 
gathered together at this place, not for work, but in order to 
reflect the grandeur and splendor of the monarchy by their 
mere presence. The entire life was one of idle representation ; 
no one lived at home and for himself, but everybody was con- 
stantly in the public gaze. Courtiers were chiefly occupied in 
pocketing, in the form of pensions and endowments, as much 
as they could of the proceeds which the laboring people poured 
into the royal treasury. The daily business of each individual 
was to enjoy himself with the aid and at the expense of the 
rest. It is not surprising that of all the human vices, vanity 



800 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

and malice should have flourished most under such condi- 
tions. — Frederick the Great is quoted as having said to Sulzer 
that he, Sulzer, did not know the accursed tribe to which 
they belonged. This was not a chance remark, the outburst 
of a temporary mood, but revealed a contempt for humankind 
which had become habitual with the king during his old age. 
Did Frederick possess a knowledge of human nature ? He 
undoubtedly did ; but with what kind of people had he come 
in contact? With people, of course, who gathered at his 
court : with diplomats, whose business it was to outwit him 
and each other; with literati and savants, who begged for 
favors and support, and envied each other for what they re- 
ceived ; with servile and beggarly office-seekers, who vied with 
each other to get the best places ; with a crowd whose pur- 
poses the practical eye could not fail to fathom. There were 
doubtless good people around him too, honorable officers and 
upright officials ; but the others took the greatest pains to 
attract his attention. The great majority of his subjects who 
were quietly cultivating the fields or making shoes, he did not 
see; they merely represented so many units in the census 
lists. 

The philosophers, too, have the reputation of knowing, if 
not men, at least man. Did Schopenhauer, Kant, or Hobbes 
have favorable opportunities for studying human nature ? I 
doubt it. Their point of view was abnormal in more than 
one respect. Above all, they lacked the environment in 
which are developed the most important relations of man to 
humanity : they had no family ties. Surrounded by strangers 
whom they distrusted, they reached, a helpless old age as 
lonely and disconsolate old bachelors. Frau Martha Sch we rt- 
lein is certainly right : " Us hat noch keinem wohlgetfian." 1 
We cannot read without the deepest pity the descrip- 
tions of Kant's old age, of his worries over household 
affairs, of his troubles with his servant ; of Schopenhauer^ 

1 Goethe, Faust. 



PESSIMISM 301 

efforts to conceal his money from burglars, of his despair 
of ever enjoying a decent conversation at the hotel table. 
These men not only needed some one to care for them ; 
more than that, they needed some one for whom to care. 
Man is even more attached to those for whom he cares and 
whom he loves than to those who love and care for him. 
What wonder is it, then, that these men could not sympathize 
with mankind at large when their relations to individuals 
were so unsatisfactory ? A man's confidence in and love for 
humanity depends upon a few experiences. Should any one 
of us lose the five or ten persons who are near and dear to 
him, he would be a stranger in the world ; he would be- 
come an enemy to mankind if these five or ten should prove 
false to him. We must also remember that these pessimists 
were writers and scholars, and that their knowledge of human 
nature was acquired in the world of authors and scholars. 
But where are we more apt to find vanity and dogmatism, 
flattery and an inability to recognize the merits of others, 
than in such surroundings ? I believe also that Schopenhauer 
would not have formed so low an estimate of the intelligence 
of men, if he had paid less attention to book and newspaper 
writers, and more to the common-sense people who are en- 
gaged in the practical pursuits of life. 

Let us now hear the opinion of healthy, unprejudiced men, 
of real men of the people. Take Goethe. His was a rich and 
healthy nature, and few persons came into such direct personal 
contact with, and gained so deep and wide a knowledge of, the 
life of the German people as did he. Indeed, we can say that 
hardly a single phase of it was entirely unknown to him. He 
also possessed remarkable powers of perception, and had the 
happy faculty of describing his impressions with unusual force. 
His letters and autobiographic writings acquaint us with the 
world in which he lived; we are introduced to the parental 
home and the surroundings of his youth in Frankfort ; then 
to the circles at Leipsic, Strasburg, Sesenheim, Wetzlar, and 



302 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

Weimar. What kind of people does he meet? We find 
agreeable and disagreeable characters among them ; most of 
them are not troubling about their morality; they live as 
human beings usually live, as their natures dictate. Few of 
them resemble the descriptions of the moralistic pessimist. 
Here and there, of course, we notice a little perverseness and 
some malice, but more often we find ourselves face to face with 
natural, amiable, honest, and sensible human beings. Goethe's 
poetical creations, in which he typifies his conceptions of 
human nature, impress us similarly. In Gotz, in Egmont, in 
Hermann und Dorothea, works in which he portrays the popu- 
lar phases of German life, everywhere we discover vigorous, 
calm and energetic, cheerful and contented characters. True, 
the petty, effeminate, deceitful, and violent natures are not 
lacking; but, after all, they merely serve as foils for the 
others. 

Was Goethe unacquainted with the other side of the pic- 
ture ? Did he fail to see what constantly aroused Schopen- 
hauer's anger and indignation ? Surely not. In his Xenien, 
in his Sprilche in Versen und JProsa, in which Goethe settles 
accounts with his literary contemporaries, many a harsh 
word is uttered against vanity and emptiness, against narrow- 
mindedness and baseness. It would not be hard to form a 
complete catechism of pessimism by collecting different pas- 
sages from Goethe's writings ; think of what might be done 
with Mephistopheles alone ! But all this did not prevent him 
from going right on loving and trusting humanity. 

If now we are not satisfied with the testimony of this wit- 
ness, let us turn to Jeremias Gotthelf and his charming stories 
of Swiss peasant-life, or to Fritz Reuter's incomparable 
Stromtid. Here we become acquainted with the base scoun- 
drel, the reckless idler, the vain fool who ruins himself; but 
we also come in contact with modest, quiet, fruitful labor, 
rugged honesty, healthy common-sense, a wholesome love of 
everything beautiful and good, active devotion to the welfare 



PESSIMISM 303 

of others, stern opposition to falsehood and rascality, and we 
are not made to feel that the latter virtues are in the minority ; 
they by no means give up the battle in despair, but unite in 
making a brave and successful attempt at resistance. Or 
look at the human world portrayed by Ludwig Richter's 
pencil, and do not fail to read, at the same time, this ex- 
cellent man's Autobiography, — the most charming of all 
autobiographies. 

Are these men self-deluded and deluding optimists ? I do not 
believe it. I do not believe that the virtuous and healthy men 
are in the minority in the world. Viewed from the outside 
and in the mass, human beings do not make a particularly 
favorable impression. The observer who sees them pushing 
and crowding each other on the trains and in the streets of 
the metropolis, at entertainments and theatres, in public 
gatherings and meetings of all kinds, and notices their flat- 
teries and backbitings, their self-conceit and envy, will not 
be favorably impressed with the tribe. But when we follow 
the particular individual into the narrow home and into his 
family and workshop, we often find a quite different person, 
a sensible workman, a prudent manager, a loving father. 
Even the clamorous and offensive partisan quietly and mod- 
estly converses with you here ; the high-sounding phrases 
which he used in his speech at the mass meeting scarcely occur 
in his talk ; he can listen, deliberate, and doubt, — things which 
no one, knowing him in his public capacity, would ever have 
thought him capable of. I believe that the nearer we ap- 
proach the real life of the individual, the more, as a rule, we 
shall find to appreciate and to love, or at least to understand 
and excuse. That is what the poet does. Schopenhauer, 
however, saw mankind only from the distance and in the 
mass ; like Wagner in Faust, he heard the distant noises of 
the throng and turned away in disgust. 

Of course, there are other poets, who see things in a dif- 
ferent light. Byron and Thackeray and many among the 



304 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

more recent French and Northern poets, seem to believe that 
the closer we come to life, and the clearer the view which we 
get of it, the more completely the beautiful illusion van- 
ishes. Splendor and happiness, amiability and cordiality, are 
but the theatrical masks of life ; behind the scenes we come 
face to face with its wretchedness and brutality. — Who 
would deny that this is often the case ? But is it not true 
that this description applies to circles in which the chief 
business of life is to appear upon the stage of publicity, be it 
in the garb of the politician or actor, the artist or society 
man, the promoter or author ? It has been said that politics 
ruins the character. I believe we must say that all forms 
of public life have a tendency to destroy character. Osten- 
tation and sham are almost inseparable from publicity. But 
these persons, who, it is true, particularly attract the public 
eye, do not constitute the essence of a people ; a nation con- 
sisting merely of such actors could not live. 

Is this craving for theatrical effect a peculiar product of 
our age ? It almost seems so. And yet what age has ever 
been free from it ? And when have persons been wanting who 
made it their business to destroy the illusion by giving us a 
glimpse at the life behind the scenes ? It is doubtful, however, 
whether any age has ever taken such delight in disenchanting 
us as the present. To cast aspersions upon mankind and to 
expose the less beautiful phases of our nature is one of the 
most popular literary occupations of the times ; it has become 
a fad to show up falsehood and coarseness, in poetry and in 
prose. Is this a favorable sign ; does it mean that the public 
mind is turning towards the truth ? I confess, I am not wholly 
convinced of it. Besides the craving for truth, there is 
another impulse in us that may be satisfied by these things ; 
it is the craving which feeds upon gossip and scandal. I 
therefore doubt very much whether the new school of art, 
which calls itself the realistic school, is to be welcomed as 
a healthy movement. To be sure, falsehood is not good, and 



PESSIMISM 305 

we should not close our eyes to the real. No doubt, there are 
penitentiaries and hospitals, and insane asylums to boot, and 
perhaps not all are in them who ought to be there. But that 
most persons ought to be there, as our pessimistic litterati 
try to make us believe by carefully selecting the material for 
our study of human nature, cannot, as yet, be regarded as 
proved. And perhaps even those who really ought to be in 
these institutions do not like to visit them. We cannot advise 
every one to visit the dissecting room. George Eliot some- 
where beautifully says : " Poor outlines and shadows of souls 
that we are, with but a quickly passing glimpse of the perfect 
and the true, well would it behoove us to help each other in 
beholding the blessed light of heaven, instead of searching each 
other's eyes in order to detect the motes in them." 1 And 
August Francke utters a no less valuable truth when he says : 
" We may praise the works of God, but we must be very 
careful in speaking of the works of the devil. For the 
human heart contains sparks of evil which easily catch fire." 
Besides, we cannot, perhaps, abandon ourselves to pessi- 
mistic reflections without some danger, — provided, of course, 
we do not aim to destroy the will-to-live, as Schopenhauer 
intends that we should. It is undoubtedly wise not to expect 
too much of life, hence we shall do well to familiarize our- 
selves with the thought that not all our wishes will be ful- 
filled, and that not everybody can be trusted. Thus we shall 
guard against disappointments. On the other hand, continued 
concentration of the attention upon the shadow-sides of life 
and human nature will help to create an habitual contempt for 
humanity and a hatred of life even in cases where these would 
not necessarily have ensued. Pessimistic reflections will have 
but little influence upon an energetic and healthy nature, but 
where the person is disposed to be pessimistic, he will, by 
brooding upon these things too much, develop an abnormal 

1 [I have not been able to find this passage in the original, and have therefore 
been compelled to translate it from the German. — Tr.] 



306 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

state of mind in reference to them. If a man were constantly 
to watch the weather, to see whether it was not too warm or too 
cold, too moist or too dry for him, he would most likely soon 
discover that not three days in the year were suitable for a 
walk. Similarly, if a man should take Schopenhauer's advice, 
and carefully treasure up in his mind, as alimenta rnisan- 
thropice, all the disagreeable experiences which he had had with 
human beings, brooding over them day after day, he would 
certainly come to regard all men as scoundrels and abor- 
tions, or " factory-wares of nature," and succeed in making 
himself miserable. If you are not willing to do this, it 
will be wiser for you to contemplate the sunny sides of life, 
and to search for what will raise your estimate of mankind, 
or at least serve to excuse them. Schopenhauer advises us to 
be constantly on the lookout for the baseness of men, and to 
use it as a means of feeding our hatred of humanity. Perhaps 
the following would be sounder advice : Do not expect human 
beings to serve you without asking something in return, but 
rejoice nevertheless when you find an exception, and believe 
firmly that there are not only persons who will take advantage 
of their fellows, wherever they can do so with impunity, but also 
that there are some who will delight in being able to help them 
without being asked. Likewise do not count upon gratitude ; 
but rejoice when you meet a man who cheerfully and sincerely 
accepts your help, and whose eye betokens his appreciation of 
the gift as well as of the giver ; and firmly believe that such 
men still exist, pessimism and social-democratic arrogance to 
the contrary notwithstanding. And I should regard it as one 
of the functions of poetry to arouse .such sentiments. To be 
sure, it ought to portray people as they are, and not shadowless 
phantoms. The sugar-dolls Of sentimental novels destroy our 
taste for reality and produce moral dyspepsia, utterly cor- 
rupting the taste. The present, t seems, is afflicted with this 
very disease. During the days of Auerbach's and Freytag's 
novels, we flattered the vanity of the virtuous bourgeoisie and 



PESSIMISM 307 

professorial tribe too much; under the influence of socialistic 
criticisms of society we are now experiencing the reaction. We 
shall recuperate, of course ; and then art will again recognize 
that it is its mission to portray healthy, active, and energetic 
life, using baseness and mendacity simply as a foil. A poem 
which contemplates and portrays the base for its own sake 
must be regarded as a pathological phenomenon, and can only 
serve as a means of spreading disease. 1 

But let us return to our subject. In view of what we have 
said, it does not seem to me that pessimism can claim to be a 
scientifically proved theory. It is, in the last analysis, nothing 
but an expression of the individual's experiences with life and 
man, presented in the form of universal judgments. The 
conclusion, Life is worthless, means, when reduced to its 
simplest terms : It did not yield what I expected. The 
proposition, Men are worthless, means : Men have treated me 
badly ; I take no pleasure in them and do not care for their 
welfare. We are generally inclined to express our individual 
experiences in the form of universal propositions. A parti- 
cular person has met three Englishmen during his lifetime ; 
he did not like them ; he will invariably say : Englishmen are 
unmannerly or crazy people. It is as Spinoza says : Et dum 
tram evomunt, sapientes videri volunt. 

There is another fact which encourages men to form univer- 
sal propositions in regard to the baseness of life and mankind. 
There is something quieting and consoling in the thought. 
When a man has been deceived by his wife, he declares that 
women are good for nothing. When a writer is ignored by 
the public, he says : The masses have never been able to tell 



1 If I interpret the play correctly, Shakespeare's Hamlet aims to show — at least 
it does show — how a great soul may be ruined by constantly attending to the 
vulgar and base. Hamlet's entire life is devoted to the detection and unmask- 
ing of evil, to the analysis and microscopic examination of the low, to tbe 
rhetorical exaggeration of the repulsive ; and the paralysis of his own being is 
the result. I have developed this idea in an article in the Deutsche Rundschau, 
(May, 1889), Hamlet, Die Tragodie des Pessimismus, 



308 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

the difference between the good and the bad. It intensifies 
our pain to tell ourselves that what we have suffered is an 
exception, and contrary to fate, as it were ; our grief is 
assuaged by the reflection that it is the universal lot. Schopen- 
hauer made a theory for all the pains he suffered, for those 
caused by women and by men, by street arabs and university 
professors. His pessimism is the general theory of his partic- 
ular theories. It undoubtedly helped him to endure his 
sorrows. Pessimism was his household remedy against his 
chronic ill-humor which resulted from his temperamental 
defect, dyscholia. The remedy did not succeed in removing 
the disease, but it acted like an opiate, it assuaged his pain. 
Who does not use it in the same way occasionally ? It has 
another property : it quiets the conscience. The universal 
proposition acquits the ego, so to speak. If I were the only 
one having a hard time of it, if I alone were unable to get 
along with men, it would be hard to deny that not the others, 
but that I myself was at fault. In case, however, everybody 
meets with the same experiences, then they are perfectly 
natural, and I am not to be blamed. Besides, I am inclined 
to think that the most pronounced egoist usually complains 
most of egoism. He accuses others of egoism when they 
refuse to lend themselves to his selfish desires. Goethe seems 
to have noticed the same thing : he dedicated the following 
lines to the " Crotchet-mongers" (Grrillenfdnger) : 

Fiirchtet hinter diesen Launen, 
Diesem ausstaffierten Schmerz, 
Diesen truben Augenbraunen 
Leerheit oder schlechtes Herz. 

4. The historical-philosophical argument aims to show 
that as civilization advances, mankind becomes more and 
more unhappy and bad. Schopenhauer represents historical- 
philosophical pessimism on the hedonistic side, Rousseau on 
the moralistic side. The former is fond of telling us that civil- 
ization tends to increase pain, while the latter emphasizes the 



PESSIMISM 309 

other aspect, and claims that civilization tends to destroy 
morality. 

It is worthy of note that the pessimistic view of history 
can, in a certain measure, appeal for support to common- 
sense. The conception of historical life which has been cur- 
rent among European nations since the advent of Christianity 
follows the Jewish myth, and places perfection at the begin- 
ning of things. The original state of the human race was 
divided between the happiness and innocence of Paradise. 
History really begins with the fall of man, and the end 
towards which it is moving is the judgment day. Sin, 
misery, and corruption will continue to increase until they 
reach their maximum in the kingdom of the Antichrist, and 
inaugurate the end of the world. — The Greeks, too, were 
familiar with this conception of the progress of human his- 
tory. Hesiod gives expression to it in his description of the 
ages of the world, beginning with the golden age and ending 
with the iron age, in which the poet complains that he has 
been condemned to live. — Perhaps the conception may be 
explained psychologically. The temperament of old age is 
optimistic in reference to the past. The old man is unable 
to keep in touch with the present ; he is powerless to accom- 
plish anything, and seeks the cause for it, not in himself, but 
in the times, which, in his opinion, are growing worse and 
worse. The past, on the other hand, glows with the memo- 
ries of youth. Old age is the bearer of historical reminis- 
cences ; from it the young receive intelligence of the past, and 
are taught to view the past in the light of old age. The ten- 
dency to admire, which is peculiar to youth, and the tendency 
to believe in a great and glorious descent, assist in the pro- 
cess. Finally, the tendency to employ history as an instru- 
ment of moral preaching has the same effect. Whoever, for 
any reason or other, is dissatisfied with the present, loves to 
humiliate it by holding up to it the picture of a better past. 

With the rise of historical research, the splendor with 



310 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

which legend surrounded the beginnings vanished. The 
scientific investigations of modern times have begun to throw 
light upon the real past. As a consequence, our historical con- 
ceptions have been completely changed. The leaders of the 
seventeenth century transferred the golden age from the past 
to the future, and the eighteenth century systematized the new 
view, conceiving history as a steady progress from meagre 
beginnings to a state of glorious perfection, which, it was 
supposed, would be realized in the period of Enlightenment. 

Rousseau inaugurated a reaction against the optimistic con- 
ception of history. Romanticism created the notion of a wise 
and perfect primitive race, which also haunted the philosophy 
of Schelling. Schopenhauer too is a genuine child of Roman- 
ticism in his philosophy of history. He absolutely fails to 
see a change for the better in history ; indeed he is inclined to 
deny that there is any logic in history. The names and cus- 
toms change, but the contents of the play remain eternally 
the same. Only in one respect does Schopenhauer find un- 
mistakable evidences of development : pain is certainly in- 
creasing. Brutes are the happiest, or, rather, the least un- 
happy creatures ; while increase of knowledge means increase 
of sorrow for man. Qui auget scientiam, auget dolorem. 

His reasons for this view may be summarized as follows : 

(1) With the increasing complexity of its nature, a creature 
becomes more and more sensitive to pain. Now, every ad- 
vance in civilization means a multiplication of needs and 
the necessary means of satisfying them. Hence, as civiliza- 
tion advances, desire, misery, and disappointment increase. 

(2) Intelligence develops, and man gains an insight into the 
future. The animal lives in the present ; it feels the pain of 
the moment only. In case the conditions of life become too 
unfavorable, it dies without really experiencing the death 
which it did not foresee. Man sees the evils coming upon 
him ; he foresees old age and death ; fear and anxiety are 
added to pain, and they are greater tortures than pain itself. 



PESSIMISM 311 

Indeed, the fear of death may lead to suicide. (3) Man's per- 
sonality is doubled, as it were ; in addition to his real self he 
has an ideal self. The ideal ego is no less vulnerable, no less 
susceptible to pain, than the real ego. Defeated ambition, 
wounded pride, unrequited love, are inexhaustible sources of 
torture ; calumny and dishonor wound us more deeply than 
bodily hurts. This vulnerability also increases with the prog- 
ress of civilization ; the higher the stage of civilization, the 
more complex society grows, and the more dependent men 
become upon each other. The higher the social rank of an 
individual, the more he is exposed to the criticisms of others. 
How unconcerned the peasant lives in this regard ; and how 
much sorrow falls into the life of the politician and author ! 
(4) In still another respect is the life of man expanded, 
and his vulnerability increased. The sympathetic feelings 
develop, and he now feels the sorrows of others as well as his 
own. The animal is unaffected by the sufferings and death 
of its companions, while even the brutal man sympathizes 
with his surroundings. He is moved by the sufferings and 
death of those he loves, and so dies many deaths. And the 
best men suffer the most : in addition to their own particular 
sorrows they feel the universal sorrows; we can hardly 
imagine great and good men without a trace of melancholy. 

These statements are not untrue, but they are onesided. 
Not only is the susceptibility to pain increased : sensibility 
is intensified in both directions. Pleasures as well as pains 
become more manifold and intense. We undoubtedly inter- 
pret the phenomena of bodily life correctly when we assume 
that vertebrates suffer more violent pains than invertebrates. 
The tearing of the body of a worm surely causes pain, but 
this can hardly be compared to that suffered, say by a dog, 
when a single nerve tract is severed. It is also unquestion- 
ably true that the pleasurable feelings aroused in a dog by 
the chase are incomparably more intense than those experi* 
enced by the rain worm in searching for its food. 



312 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

We must therefore supplement the above pessimistic 
reflections if we would reach the truth. It is said : (1) As 
life develops, needs and therefore pains increase. Yery true ; 
but the means of satisfying the needs also increase. To 
this end action becomes more and more complex, greater 
and more developed powers and capacities are set in motion, 
and as a consequence the accompanying pleasures are also 
increased. Compare the life and activity of the prehistoric 
inhabitants of our coast, who have left the traces of their 
existence in the so-called Kjokkenmoddingem, with the life 
and the activity of the peasants and mechanics, the fishermen 
and sailors, who at present inhabit the same regions. We 
are surely justified in saying that for the increase of trouble, 
want, and wretchedness in their lives, there has been a corre- 
sponding increase of pleasure in their work and its results. 
I do not wish to claim that the increase in pleasure exceeds 
the increase in pain ; this may be so, but it cannot be proved. 
But it is surely just as hard to prove the reverse. 

(2) It is held that the fear and anxiety caused by the pre- 
vision of future pain increases pain. Indeed, if all pains 
consisted merely in momentary feelings, they would not be 
hard to bear; privations, sorrows, and even physical pains 
oppress us so because they are regarded as the beginning of a 
long series. But pleasures, too, owe their real human char- 
acter and worth to the fact that they are anticipated by hope ; 
and we may say that the human heart is not so unhappily 
constituted as to be more susceptible to fear than to hope. 
Temperaments differ; but perhaps our expectations of the 
future are falsified by hope more often than by fear. And 
perhaps memory is a still greater falsifier, if you please, 
than hope, in giving us a cheerful view of life. The happy 
and joyful days which we have spent linger in memory as a 
source of pleasure ; nay, memory idealizes them : it retouches 
the picture by removing the unpleasant and disturbing ele- 
ments which are seldom wanting in reality. Days, on the 



PESSIMISM 313 

other hand, which were full of misery and struggle, sorrow 
and care, lose their sting in memory ; sorrow at the loss of a 
good is transformed into a mild, tender sadness ; the remem- 
brance of miseries and troubles endured fills us with pride : 
olim meminisse juvabit, — so the Roman poet consoles 
the heavy-laden. Are not autobiographies almost always 
biodicies ? 

Die Freuden bliihn mir noch, 

Die Leiden sind erblichen. 1 

(3) As for the pains caused by hurts to the ideal self, we 
may also say that they are supplemented by the pleasures which 
result from the recognition we receive from others, and from the 
successful struggle for the prize bestowed upon merit. And 
could the higher human functions ever have been developed 
if men did not strive after honor and distinction ? We may 
also call to mind that human nature possesses a cure against 
ideal wounds. Injury and neglect make us proud, and pride 
heals pain. Schopenhauer had ample opportunity for observ- 
ing this truth in his own case. 

(4) The same may be said of the pains which arise from 
sympathy : they, too, are supplemented by the pleasures which 
arise from our participation in the weal and woe of others. 
If we may believe an old proverb, sympathy with the lot 
of others has a very favorable effect upon the happiness of 
the parties concerned : Creteilter Schmerz ist halber Schmerz ; 
geteilte Freude ist doppelte Freude ; 2 which would make a four- 
fold gain. 

To sum up : As civilization advances, the sorrows and the 
pleasures grow in extensity and in intensity. Does the pleas- 
ure exceed the pain ? Historical optimism confidently asserts 
that the progress of history increases happiness. Pessimism 
with equal confidence sets up the counter-claim that it in- 
creases sorrow. I regard both assertions as equally incapable 

1 Riickert. 

a A divided pain is half a pain; divided pleasure is double pleasure. 



314 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

of proof. Both of them may be made very plausible by 
rhetorical arguments, but there is really no way of definitely 
deciding the matter. One thing alone seems certain to me, 
that as sensibility increases, sorrows and pleasures become 
more intense. In the same ratio ? Perhaps. But this would 
not mean that the sum-total of the pains and the pleasures, 
considered and added as negative and positive quantities, was 
always equal to zero. I rather incline to the view that, just as 
health and normal forms are more common than disease and 
malformations, pleasure is more common than pain. But let 
me repeat : We cannot measure and add the feelings or their 
intensities. Nay, I believe that if any one, with a view to 
gathering statistics, were to ask particular individuals whether 
they felt pain or pleasure at that particular moment, he would 
frequently receive the answer : I have not paid any attention 
to the matter ; and if he were to persist in interrogating his 
subjects, he would be told: I really do not know myself — 
which would plainly show that they did not attribute the im- 
portance to pleasure and pain which hedonistic and pessimistic 
philosophers ascribe to them. 

5. Let me say a few words in reference to the moralistic 
phase of historical pessimism, which Rousseau preached with 
such impassioned eloquence during the second half of the last 
century. He regards the primitive state of man as a state of 
innocence and virtue, from which civilization is deviating more 
and more. The nearer we approach the original state, the 
more purity and virtue we find. These virtues may, in 
Rousseau's opinion, still be found among shepherds and 
peasants ; we shall seek for them in vain in Parisian society, 1 
at the court of Versailles. In his celebrated maiden work, in 
which he discusses the question whether the revival of science 
and letters has contributed anything to purify morals, he is in- 
clined to seek the causes of moral decay in the development of 
the sciences and the arts. A second question, proposed by 

1 [Discours sur les sciences et les arts, 1749. — Tb.] 



PESSIMISM 315 

the Academy of Dijon, concerning the origin of the inequal- 
ity among men, gave him an opportunity to modify his state- 
ment to the effect that the development of social classes is 
the immediate cause of moral decay. 1 As civilization advances, 
so we may summarize his views, differences arise between the 
rich and the poor, the high and the low, masters and servants ; 
and thus human nature, which is fundamentally good, deterio- 
rates. On the one side arise the lordly vices : haughtiness, 
arrogance, and cruelty. Social differentiation likewise tends 
to destroy our natural judgments of value. The natural value 
of things consists in their satisfying genuine needs. In society 
a conventional value takes the place of the natural one ; 
things are prized in so far as they confer social distinction. 
Diamonds and pearls have no natural value, or, perhaps, only a 
trivial one as ornaments. In society, however, they are highly 
prized as marks of wealth and nobility ; they owe their value 
to the fact that others do not possess them. So knowledge 
receives a conventional value in society ; under the name of 
culture it confers social distinction. But such knowledge is 
not the same as that which is really valuable for life. That 
knowledge has true worth which makes its possessor wiser or 
more prudent. Culture and learning often do the opposite ; 
they suppress healthy common-sense and natural power of 
judgment. In the same way polite manners and good form 
usurp the position which belongs to virtue alone. Thus false- 
hood and semblance corrupt the life of society. Nous avons 
de Vhonneur sans vertu, de la raison sans sagesse, et du plaisir 
sans bonheur : thus Rousseau's Contrat Social sums up his 
opinion of the culture and enlightenment of his age, in one 
of those epigrams which leave such a vivid impression upon the 
memory. 

These statements, again, are not untrue, but they are one- 
sided. Civilization, with its accompanying social differentia- 
tion, undoubtedly creates new perversities and vices, but it also 

1 [Discours sur Forigine et h fondement de Vinegalite parnii les hommes, 1754 ] 



316 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

produces new virtues. There are lordly virtues as well as 
vices : courage, magnanimity, self-control, dignity, circum- 
spection, benevolence. And servants, too, have their virtues 
as well as their vices : loyalty, devotion, faithfulness. When 
his social position corresponds to the natural endowments of a 
man, when every man takes the place for which his natural 
capacities fit him, there can be no more favorable conditions 
for the development of character, and both sides will regard 
the relation as a happy one. Just as little reason have we to 
believe that the commodities which civilization produces have 
merely an artificial value. Science and art surely possess 
natural and genuine worth, even though perverse forms of 
pedantry and pseudo-culture are not infrequent ; nor have the 
commodities produced and made accessible by trade and com- 
merce mere artificial value. — Rousseau's dream of a happy 
and innocent state of nature belongs to the past; it is the 
dream of the age of Louis XV. ; it does not reflect a 
real world found in the South Sea Islands or among the 
Indians, but represents the exact opposite of the society which 
dreamed it. Contact with uncivilized peoples never reveals the 
proud and sincere, the virtuous and happy savages who are 
mentioned in the novels of the eighteenth century. J. S. Mill 
holds, in an essay On Nature, that no remarkable human 
quality is a natural endowment, but the result of civilization. 
Courage, veracity, cleanliness, self-control, justice, benevo- 
lence are acquired characteristics ; fear, mendacity, filthiness, 
intemperance, brutality, selfishness, — these are the character- 
istics which impartial observers discover in the physiognomy 
of the savage. 

Shall we, then, say that the race grows more moral as civil- 
ization advances ? I should not deny it, but historical pessi- 
mism might bring some powerful arguments to bear against 
Mill's view. It may be that the uncivilized do not possess the 
virtues referred to, but they also lack the vices of civilization. 
If we look at the criminal life of a European metropolis, or 



PESSIMISM 317 

peer into the secrets which hide behind the name of polite 
society, and which the writers most popular with that class 
are so fond of divulging, we shall have to confess that the 
vices of the savage are childish pranks compared with the 
subtle forms of repulsive pleasure, deceitful malice, and utter 
baseness to be found there. — Can we say that these are 
unfortunate exceptions ; that, generally speaking, there is a 
greater gain on the side of virtue than on the side of 
vice ? How hopeless it would be to attempt to prove such an 
assertion may be seen by asking a concrete question : Are the 
Germans of the new Empire better or worse, morally con- 
sidered, than the Germans of the Aufklarung, the Reforma- 
tion, the Crusades, or of the days of Hermann? — All that 
can be said with certainty in this connection is, again, that 
there is an increase in moral differentiation. Just as the 
pains and pleasures are growing in intensity, the virtues and 
vices are becoming greater and more specific. Animals, we 
might say, stand at the zero-point ; they are neither good nor 
bad. Moralization begins with humanization. In the lower 
stages the differences are insignificant, the individuals resem- 
ble each other, they are exemplars which, on the whole, express 
the genus in the same way. As civilization advances, indi- 
vidualization increases ; good and evil stand out in greater 
relief. The masses, to be sure, do not rise beyond a colorless 
mean ; they have good as well as evil impulses. But in par- 
ticular personalities good and evil stand out in bold relief. 
On the one hand, we have deep and reverent love, self-sacrific- 
ing loyalty, passionate devotion to truth and justice ; on the 
other, complete and total depravity. Nevertheless, nothing 
prevents us from believing that there is more good than evil 
in the world, that the evil, as the abnormal, is the less fre- 
quent. One thing alone seems undeniable, and that is that 
the contrasts are becoming more marked. And perhaps this 
will continue to be the case. Just as, according to the 
Hebrew myth, the natural world began with the separation 



318 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

of darkness from light, so, according to the same profound 
story, the historical world began with the distinction between 
good and evil. And according to the Christian conception, 
which adopts this myth, history consists in continuing the 
process of separation. In the kingdom of God and in the 
kingdom of the devil the opposition between good and evil is 
most highly marked. Humanity stands between the two, and 
gradually divides into two groups, some being attracted and 
wholly absorbed by the kingdom of God, others by the king- 
dom of the devil, until the judgment day shall bring about the 
absolute and final expulsion of the evil. 

6. But, some one may ask, if all this is so, if one thing 
alone is certain, namely, that as civilization advances sensi- 
bility and consequently the intensity of pleasures and pains 
increase, and moral differentiation and a corresponding 
increase in the intensity of good and evil take place ; and if 
it is doubtful whether the gain on the side of virtue and 
happiness exceeds that on the side of vice and unhappiness, 
if the natural course of historical development does not lead 
to the expulsion of evil, but this must await the coming of 
the judgment day, that is, the end of our temporal earthly 
life, — if all this is so, then is not pessimism in the right ? 
Then is not Schopenhauer's statement concerning the aim- 
lessness and un worthiness of life correct ? Are not all work 
and care, all struggle and sacrifice, in vain ? 

I do not think so. It would not be the case, even if we 
granted that good and evil, pleasure and pain, were always 
present and increased in the same ratio, so that their sum, 
as positive and negative quantities, would always be equal 
to zero. We shall be still less willing to decide in favor of 
pessimism when we make an assumption which cannot be 
proved, but which nothing hinders us from believing, namely, 
that virtue and welfare always overbalance vice and failure, 
and that this preponderance is always in the same ratio. 

The pessimistic argument falsely assumes that the worth 



PESSIMISM 319 

of historical life consists in its realizing a final state of 
absolute happiness and absolute perfection. But, in the 
first place, there can never be such a final state. Life, his- 
torical life, is inconceivable without oppositions : absolute 
happiness and absolute perfection make striving and there- 
fore life impossible. Moreover, the value of life is not 
determined by the end which it reaches, but by its entire 
course. So it is with an individual life. Boyhood and youth 
are valuable not only because they lead up to manhood, but 
valuable in themselves, just as valuable as manhood and 
old age. The same may be said of historical life. Let us 
sincerely hope that later generations will be happier and 
more virtuous than their predecessors ; but it will be no 
reproach to history if they are not. The preceding ages 
are not merely means to an end, not merely so many stages 
over which the last one passes to perfection and happiness : — 
they lived their own life, and this had an independent 
value. The Greeks and Romans did not live in order to 
leave us a few remnants of their civilization ; they lived for 
their own sakes, and their life merely receives additional 
value from the fact that it forms a part of the larger life 
of humanity. Had history ended, as primitive Christianity 
expected, with the first century of our era, the value of 
the historical life preceding it would not have been destroyed 
and annulled, as it were ; but just as each day of historical 
life has its own cares, so it has its own worth, of which no 
subsequent occurrence can deprive it. It can only be enhanced 
in value by being rationally connected with the next day. 
Historical life has often been compared to a drama ; indeed, 
it is the great drama, of which all the dramas of the poets 
are but small imitations. No one believes that the drama 
on the stage receives its value from the last act or from the 
final state realized by the persons in the cast. Its value is 
determined by the contents of the entire play ; each scene 
contributes to it. We, of course, demand that the scenes of 



320 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

the drama be more than disconnected fragments ; we expect 
them to make a rational whole, in which each particular ele- 
ment shall have its teleologically necessary place. We expect 
a similar connection and progress in history. The particu- 
lar events and the particular actors must not merely form a 
disconnected aggregate or succession, but a natural and har- 
monious whole. It is true, as I have repeatedly pointed out, we 
cannot reveal the logical connection in the history of 
humanity, as we can interpret a drama, and show how the 
different parts necessarily follow from the idea of the whole ; 
this would be the business of the philosophy of history. But 
to this branch of knowledge the Pythagorean maxim that God 
alone has philosophy is particularly applicable. We human 
beings look at history as the multitude, according to Goethe, 
look at a play ; they see the particular occurrences and are 
pleased with the constant change of scene, but they do not 
grasp the meaning of the whole. So our historical science 
brings together a lot of fragments ; but the master who will 
form them into a whole, who will rethink the divine thought 
of the history of humanity and give it expression, has not 
yet appeared, and will perhaps never appear. Only occa- 
sionally do we seem to see rational connections. This may 
strengthen our faith that there is a universal reason per- 
vading the universe, which combines the elements of histori- 
cal life according to an inner necessity. I said above that 
autobiographies were usually biodicies. If ever humanity 
writes its autobiography at the end of its days, replete though 
it may be with accounts of work and struggle, misery and 
failure, it will, we believe, be a biodicy and a theodicy. 1 

Die Menschheit selbst in ihrem dunklen Drange 
War sich des rechten Weges wohl bewusst. 

1 [Williams, A Review of Evolutionary Ethics, Part II., chaps. VIL, VIII. ; 
Mackenzie, Manual, Moral Progress, chap. XV. See also, Lessing, Erziehung 
des Menschengesrhleckts (Engl. tr. in Bonn's Library), and Kant, Das mag in der 
Theorie richtig sein. — Tht.j 



CHAPTER IV 

THE EVIL, THE BAD, AND THEODICY* 

1. Theodicies are not in favor in our times. We derive 
more pleasure from the analytical contemplation of evil and 
from reviling the nature which produces it. Nevertheless, I 
shall venture to make the untimely attempt to justify the 
evil in the world. Of course, we cannot prove that the world 
as it exists, is absolutely good, or even that it is the best of 
possible worlds — we do not know much of the absolute or 
the possible ; but we can endeavor to say what it is for us. 
And it may, in my opinion, be shown that the universe, as 
it is, is essentially adapted to our nature. It supplies us with 
appropriate conditions of growth, furnishes our capacities 
with the necessary tasks, and gives to our life, if only we 
wish it, a rich and beautiful content. We could not, being 
what we are, have any use for, or tolerate, a world differently 
constituted. Whoever regards this as self-evident, holding 
that our nature no less than the organism of every animal 
species is suited to its environment, may dismiss all dis- 
cussions concerning the evil as superfluous. I desire to add, 
however, that the evil in the world can be justified only in a 
general way. It will always be impossible to point out the 
teleological necessity of a particular evil in a particular case, 

1 [See the writings of the Stoics, Plotinus, Augustine ; also Spinoza, Tractatus 
politicus ; Leibniz, Theodic€e ; Kant, Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blosser 
Vernunft (First Part tr. in Abbott), Uber das Misslingen aller pkilosopkischen 
Versuche in der Theodice'e ; J. Miiller, Die Lehre von der Siinde : Hoffding, Ethik, 
VI., Das ethisch Bose ; Runze, Ethik, §§ 13, 18; Paulsen, Introduction to Phil* 
osophy, pp. 262 ft— Tr. J 

21 



322 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

just as physics cannot explain the causal necessity of every 
particular movement. But it may be shown that human 
historical life with all the truly valuable elements it contains, 
as a rule, demands the very conditions under which it actually 
exists. Take away all evils, and you abolish life itself. Evil 
remains evil, none the less, and bad, bad, but they are not things 
that ought absolutely not to be. 1 They must be, not for their 
own sake, however, but for the sake of the good. Yet it cannot 
be denied that, however we may look at the matter, our think- 
ing is confronted with peculiar difficulties. We are, in a meas- 
ure, compelled to form the notion of a life that is wholly free 
from evil, but every attempt to give it concrete expression 
fails. The kingdom of God and eternal blessedness are tran- 
scendent concepts. 

2. It is customary to distinguish between physical and 
moral evils. We may subdivide the former according as 
they are caused by nature outside of us or by the nature 
within us. 

To the first class belong all the things in nature which 
oppose the needs and wishes of man : the barrenness of the 
soil, which condemns a people to abject poverty, extreme cli- 
matic conditions, oppressive heat or severe cold, which dwarf 
the vital powers ; also all those unfortunate accidents which 
destroy the fruits of labor and endanger life: floods and 
droughts, which ruin the crops, lightnings which consume 
houses, earthquakes which overturn cities. 

All evils of this kind may be embraced under a common 
head : they thwart our plans or purposes. Let us first con- 
sider the normal impediments. It is easy to see that there 
could be no action and purpose without them. All work, all 
civilization, consists in overcoming such obstacles. If the 
fields yielded harvests of their own accord, if the forests pro- 
duced an abundance of all fruits, there would be no agricul- 

i [For the distinction made in the German language between evil and bad, see 
Kant, Practical Reason, Bk. I., ch. II. (Abbott, pp. 150 f.)— Tk.j 



THE EVIL, THE BAD, AND THEODICY 328 

ture or horticulture; if the climate were always absolutely 
suited to the comforts of mankind, there would be no need of 
houses ; if tools of all kinds grew upon trees, or shoes fell from 
heaven once a year, we should need no trades, — we should 
be living in Utopia. What distinguishes the real world from 
such a dreamland is the obstacles and the labor made neces- 
sary by them. Now, no one can doubt that our own world is 
more adapted to our nature, constituted as it is, than Utopia. 
As for the extraordinary calamities, it is easy to see that 
they have the same effect : floods teach us the art of dike- 
building ; hailstorms, the art of insurance ; earthquakes, the 
art of public aid. Of course, we cannot prove to the indi- 
vidual that his misfortune was necessary and good for him in 
a particular case ; nor would the attempt to do so meet with 
a favorable response. On the other hand, we may advise him 
and help him to make the most of his troubles. And perhaps 
he may at some future time see the evil in a new light. An 
evil that has been overcome through one's own exertions and 
with outside help is not only no longer an evil, but has been 
transformed into a genuine blessing, upon which the memory 
loves to linger. Who has not at some time or other made the 
discovery that time transforms evils into blessings ? 

The same may be said of the evils which are peculiar to 
human nature, all weaknesses and infirmities of body and 
soul. We can imagine a body that is much more capable of 
resisting all kinds of harmful influences, one whose strength 
and endurance is greater, than our own. We can likewise 
imagine an intellect that far surpasses human intelligence, 
one that is not forced to wrest every advance in knowledge 
from error, prejudice, and superstition. But it is easy to see 
that this brings us to the same conclusion we reached above : 
the increase of power has the same effect as the decrease of 
impediments ; the former would lead to Utopia. We prize 
the products of the soil because we have acquired them by the 
sweat of our brow. We should not prize truth as we do if it 



324 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

were to fall into our laps without any effort on our part. The 
Pater Seraphicus at the end of Faust speaks of his eyes as 
" organs of the earthly sphere." This holds of our entire 
nature ; it is adapted to the universe and the earth, and hence 
the latter are adapted to our feelings and volitions. Other 
creatures may require other organs ; ours are suited to our 
tasks. What was said above of accidental misfortunes may 
also be said of those which dwarf our nature and our powers, 
of disease and infirmity and blindness and other organic de- 
fects. Disease has produced the art of medicine and the 
science of the body and of life ; it educates the patient and his 
surroundings, it warns and impels him to economize his vital 
powers, it is the great school of patience, resignation, tender 
love, and mercy, qualities which are valuable not only in time 
of sickness. 1 Similarly, blindness and deafness give to man 
new and unusually difficult problems to solve ; but they thereby 
awaken new powers and invent new aids. An ingenious 
legend deprives Homer of the light of his eyes, merely to 
endow him with a more brilliant light. Nor can we prove in 
this case that every evil is invariably necessary to develop- 
ment and education, but we may say here as before that it is by 
nature fitted for such a purpose, and that it is a good for him 
who turns it to good account. At all events, it is wise to in- 
terpret it so, to regard evil as religious faith regards it, as a 
trial intended for our salvation. And we must also learn from 
faith the lesson of modesty, and not claim to understand the 
connection between evil and salvation in particular cases. 
Only in a general way can we understand that evils are not 
only real, but necessary, teleologically necessary. 

" The light dove dividing the air in her flight and feeling 

1 How much surgery, the care of the sick, and the humane regard for life owe 
to the recent great wars, so that we may perhaps say that the lives of more 
people have been saved through them during the last twenty-five years of peace 
than have been lost in the wars, has been shown by Dr. Brinkmann in a beautiful 
essay in a work published by Licentiate Weber : Geschichte der sittlichen, relig- 
Often und sozialen Entwickelung Deutschlands in denktzten 35 Jahren (1895). 



THE EVIL, THE BAD, AND THEODICY 825 

its resistance, might perhaps imagine that she could succeed 
much better in a vacuum." Thus Kant illustrates the neces- 
sity of the facts of experience for the activity of our under- 
standing. In the same way, the will needs the resistance of 
the object, evil : there can be no action without resistance, no 
happiness without obstacles. " Pure " happiness, like pure 
truth, exists for God alone. We need the additional impetus 
of ignorance and error, of opposition and evil. 

3. But could not, and should not, at least, moral evil, the 
bad, have been left out ? 

I believe we must answer the question in the negative, curi- 
ous though it may sound. Moral evil, too, is, in a certain 
sense, teleologically necessary. If it were wholly eliminated, 
human historical life would lack an indispensable element 
Moral evil appears in two fundamental forms, as sensuality 
and selfishness. The former embraces all the weaknesses and 
vices which result when reason and morality surrender the 
control of life to particular sensuous impulses : intemperance, 
dissipation, indolence, frivolousness, cowardice. Selfishness 
is the root of the vices which threaten the welfare of the 
surroundings : avarice, injustice, malice, haughtiness. We 
cannot conceive of the possibility of exterminating evil in 
either form without at the same time striking at the good. 
The virtues of the first class, prudence, perseverance, cour- 
age, all presuppose the existence of sensuousness as a medium 
of resistance. Without the sensuous man's fear of sensuous 
pain or evil, there would be no courage, without the stimulus 
of pleasure, no moderation ; hence without potential badness, 
no virtue, that is, no human virtue. The virtues of the angels 
may be of a different type, but we can form no notion of 
them. So, too, the social virtues presuppose the natural self- 
ishness of the sensuous man : without this there would be no 
virtues of justice and benevolence in their particularly human 
form ; they, too, possess an element of self-denial. 

But not only is the potential evil in our own nature an in- 



326 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

dispensable means of realizing the good, but the actual evil 
outside of us is the same : in battling against it virtue grows 
strong. Injustice arouses in the spectator or victim the idea 
of the right and the sense of justice ; falsehood and deceit 
make truth and veracity valuable ; cruelty and malice form 
the foil for kindness and nobility of soul. In a poem entitled 
My Teachers, Robert Hammerling brings out the thought that 
we first become conscious of the true worth of goodness 
through evil. 1 

All the great heroes of humanity became what they were 
only by struggling with evil. The sentence and execution of 
Socrates gave his life the proper setting. Jesus had to be 
glorified by death. He himself tells us so : " Ought not 
Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his 
glory ? " Nothing in this world so moves the heart of man, 
nothing has aroused greater reverence and has given greater 
consolation to humanity than the picture of the Crucified One. 

1 I quote a few lines from the poem, which was published in the journal 
Deutsche Dichtung (1889): 

Yon wem ich wahr sein lernte % Von den Liignern, 

Den Heuchlern, Schmeichlern, Doppelziingigen, 

Klatschbriidern und Skandalgeschichtenjagern, 

Nicht minder von Phantasten, Phrasendrechslern, 

Schonfarbern, geckenhaften Faselhansen. 

Bis in den Grund der Seele so zuwider 

Ward mir die Unwahrheifr durch alle diese, 

Selbst die geringste, dass ich hassen sie 

Und meiden lernte fur mein ganzes Leben. 

Von wem ich Milde lernte 1 Von den Splitterrichtern, 

Von riicksichtslosen Spottern, bosen Zungen, 

Meinungstyrannen und Parteiwiitrichen. 

Von wem ich lieben lernte 1 Von den Hassern, 

Von Egoisten, Menschenfeinden, Neidern, 

Von Seelenmaklern, Thier- und Menschenqualern, 

Vivisektoren, seelenlosen Weibern. 

Von wem ich schweigen lernte ? Von den Schwatzern i 

Von wem ich treu sein lernte ? Von Flatterseelen ! 

Characterfest ? Von Wind- und Wetterfahnen. 

Habt Dank, ihr meine Lehrer ! Was als Lehrgeld 

Ich ench entricbtet, nicht zu theuer acht' ich's. 



THE EVIL, THE BAD, AND THEODICY 327 

But it cannot be presented without its historical surroundings, 
without the Pharisees and the scribes, without the bigoted 
high priest and the cowardly procurator, without the fanatical 
mob and the brutal soldiers ; these form the foil for the bright 
figure of Christ. The old church hymn speaks of a happy 
fault, a felix culpa, which gave us such a Savior. 

Hence, if we eliminate all evil from history, we at the same 
time eliminate the conflict of the good with the evil, and lose 
the highest and grandest possession of humanity : moral 
heroism. 

But not this alone ; we lose the entire content of historical 
life. All historical institutions are the product of a struggle 
between good and evil. Without rapacity and the love of 
war on the part of neighbors there would be no defensive 
union ; without injustice and violence among confederates, 
no legal order ; the original function of the state is to preserve 
unity and order : it is an armed union against violence and 
injustice. Eliminate these, let justice and peace, prudence 
and benevolence, become perfect on earth, and there will be 
no more work for armies and diplomacy, for courts and police, 
for governments and officials. The perfect state defeats itself. 
The church, too, like the state, was established as a power for 
good, to battle with sin. It, too, would cease to exist if it 
had completed its work, if it had entirely sanctified humanity: 
without sin, no church, no forgiveness of sins, no ministry, no 
missions. On earth there can be only a militant church, the 
church triumphant belongs to heaven. 

Hence goodness can thrive and grow strong upon earth 
only in the struggle for existence with evil. We cannot even 
imagine a history without this antithesis. 1 

But shall we, in acknowledging the teleological necessity of 

1 This is the kernel of truth in Mandeville's remarkable reflections, Private 
Vices Public Benefits. Hasbach calls attention to the importance of this man in 
an interesting article in Schmoller's Jahrbuch (1890), and also points out that 
Pierre Bayle, the great lover of truth and paradox, advanced the same funda* 

mental ideas before him. 



328 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

evil, also recognize it as one of the legitimate constituents of 
reality, equal in. value to the rest ? 

That is not my meaning. The evil has no value whatever 
as such, and no claim to existence. It exists only for the 
sake of the good, to enable it to act and realize itself. We 
have the same relation here as between light and darkness. 
The painter cannot paint without employing shadows : his 
aim, however, is not to paint shadows, but lights and colors. 
So, too, the poet cannot paint without shadows, he needs the 
ugly, the vulgar, and the base. It is not his purpose, however, 
to portray these, but the beautiful, the good, and the grand, 
and in order to bring them out more clearly he places the 
base by the side of the good, to confound the evil and 
exalt the good. So, too, the good exists in history and in life 
for its own sake, and evil for the sake of the good, as a stim- 
ulus, as an obstacle, as a foil. It is a negative quantity, 
valueless as such ; it receives a kind of power and reality 
only through its opposite, the good. But its power does not 
benefit it, for it is characteristic of evil that it has no con- 
structive force, because it is divided against itself. It has, as 
Kant once said, " the quality, inseparable from its nature, of 
being opposed to itself and self-destructive." This is also 
shown by the fact that there can be no positive anti-morality ; 
immorality is, like error, without law. All truth forms a 
unified system, but there is no system of errors. There is no 
mark, says Epictetus, for the misses. 

Goethe has a similar conception of the purpose of evil in 
the world : it is the principle of negation and destruction, the 
nothing which constantly opposes the something, reality. 
But Mephistopheles confesses : 

So viel als ich schon unternommen, 
Ich wusste nicht ihr beizukommen. 1 

1 [That which to Naught is in resistance set, — 
The Something of this clumsy world, — has yet, 
With all that I have undertaken, 
Not been by me disturbed or shaken. 

— Bayard Taylor's Translate 



THE EVIL, THE BAD, AND THEODICY 329 

On the contrary ; the spirit which invariably denies, always 
wills the bad and always works the good. And the Lord 
expresses the same idea in the Prologue : 

Des Menschen Th'atigkeit kann allzu leicht ersehlaffen, 

Er liebt sich bald die unbedingte Ruh ; 

Drum geb' ich gern ihm den Gesellen zu, 

Der reizt und wirkt und muss als Teufel schaffen. 1 

The inherent unworthiness and failure of the evil also mani- 
fests itself in self-consciousness : the consciousness of good- 
ness is peace and joy, the consciousness of evil is discord and 
unhappiness. This is Mephistopheles' experience. From his 
first meeting with Faust, in which he bitterly complains that 
so far everything has gone wrong with him, down to the very 
end — man mochte rasend werden ! — to his last appearance at 
the conclusion of the second part, when he feels 

Hiobsartig, Beul' an Beule, 

Der ganze Kerl, dem's vor sich selber graut 

Und triumphiert zugleich, wenn er sich ganz durchschaut — 2 

his mood remains the same : discontent and self-derision are 
the feelings which he harbors against himself. Whatever he 
undertakes — though at first it succeeds admirably — finally 
turns out against him. Both parts of the poem end with the 
rescue of the soul already caught in his meshes. The last 
word uttered by him is: 

Du bist getaiischt in deinen alten Tagen, 

Du hast's verdient, es geht dir grimmig schlecht. 8 

Goethe interprets the history of mankind in his poem. The 
memory of man favors this interpretation. History readjusts 

1 [Man's active nature, flagging, seeks too soon the level ; 

Unqualified repose he learns to crave ; 
Whence, willingly, the comrade him I gave, 
Who works, excites, and must create, as Devil. 

— Bayard Taylor's translation.] 

2 [Like Job, the boils have cleft me 

From head to foot, so that myself I shun ; 

Yet triumph also, when my self- inspection's done. — lb.] 

3 [Tricked so in one's old days, a great disgust is ; 
^nd I deserve it, this infernal spite. — lb.] 



330 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

the good and the bad, which so often seem to change places 
in the present; she exalts the good and great which dur- 
ing life appeared in the servant's garb and sat in the prisoner's 
dock, and proclaims it to all the world ; she confounds the 
evil and base, which once bestrode the world in pomp 
and glory, and which was proclaimed so loudly by its satel- 
lites as the great and real, and reveals it in all its noth- 
ingness. Thus she derives good from evil. "Ye thought 
evil against me, but God meant it unto good : " that is 
the great lesson of history. That is the teaching of the 
greatest history that was ever lived on earth, the history of 
Jesus. There is no more elevating and consoling history 
than the history of the passion. How great Pilate seemed 
to himself when he sat in judgment upon Jesus : Do you not 
see that I have the power to condemn you or to set you 
free ? The poor mad fool, arraigned before him as the Jewish 
pretender, surely did not look like a dangerous man, like 
a man destined to influence the history of the world. Surely, 
there was no need of killing him, he would not disturb the 
peace of the Roman Empire. But, Pilate might have been 
saying, it is a very provoking affair. If I turn him loose, I 
shall have this band of fanatical priests with their troublesome 
complaints at my back ; the hounds will not lose the scent of 
the game. And, after all, what difference does it make whether 
the fool lives a day more or less ? Therefore take him away 
and put an end to this business ; I don't want to be annoyed 
with it again. — And now how the roles have changed ! 
Long ago Pilate would have been consigned to the great sea 
of oblivion which had engulfed so many procurators and high 
priests before him, had not his name attached itself to the 
memory of the man whom he nailed to the cross : the his- 
tory of this crucifixion cannot be told without the name of 
Pilate. And so the story of the sentence pronounced upon 
Jesus by this easy-going procurator, who was, without doubt, 
anxious to please his superiors and at the same time to 



THE EVIL, THE BAD, AND THEODICY 331 

be popular with the masses and if possible also to be a 
just man, will be told as long as historical memory lasts 
upon this earth ; and so, too, the story will be told, till 
the crack of doom, of the extremely cautious high priest, 
who succeeded so admirably in proving to his own satisfac- 
tion and that of the worthy college of counsellors that it was 
better for one man to die than that a whole nation should 
perish. The story will be told, not because of any merit on 
the part of these men, and not to their credit, but in order 
to impress it strongly upon all high priests and procurators 
of justice in all the corners of the earth that their judg- 
ment is not the final judgment upon the value of men and 
things ; and conversely, in order to give to all those accused 
and condemned for the sake of truth and justice the con- 
soling certainty that their cause will be decided before a still 
higher tribunal than that of their present judges. 1 

So moral evil is constantly annihilated in the memories 
which mankind preserves of its life; it is degraded to the 
rank of the worthless and non-existent, serving merely as a 
foil for something else. 

Would it be foolish to imagine that this memory is a frag- 
ment of an absolute divine memory, and that the true reality 
of spiritual things consists in their existing in such an eternal 
consciousness, and not in their being parts of a passing, 
temporal consciousness of individuals ? — and that the good 
alone constitutes the real in the absolute consciousness, while 
the evil appears merely as the non-existent, just as darkness 
is not a reality as compared with the light, but merely its 
negation ? 

1 Thomas Carlyle, the great poet-historian, develops this thought in all his 
historical dramas. Whatever is real, true, and just is honored by history, not 
merely by written, but by actual history ; while falsehood and selfishness and 
vanity are consigned to the nothingness to which they belong. The universe 
itself constantly strives to do away with the worthless institutions which have no 
more vitality ; a monarchy or an aristocracy that no longer labors but merely 
enjoys, is cast off. Only that which labors is real ; that which does not labor 
does not deserve to be real. 



332 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

This conception reminds us of an old remark which Augus- 
tine, following Aristotle, addressed to the Manichseans : " The 
evil has no real essence, but the loss or the absence oi the 
good has received the name of evil.' , 1 Both Spinoza and 
Leibniz are of the same opinion. Perfection and reality alone 
are in God. We make a distinction between good and evil 
simply because our way of looking at things is inadequate; 
we simply judge the world by its relation to a peripheral 
point, that is, to ourselves. Everything is necessary and 
perfect in relation to the unity of reality, that is, God. — 
True, it must be added, we continue to be peripheral points 
and cannot get away from ourselves. But we can understand 
that such is the case, that our conception of things is no 
more absolute in these matters than in others. And we 
shall at all events adhere to the view that evil is not on 
a par with reality and does not possess the force of a 
negative quantity over and against reality. Hence, we can- 
not by adding up the good and evil prove that the world 
is worthless. 

4. Does this conception of the nature and import of evil 
make us quietistic f It has been charged that it does. I do 
not believe that the charge is well founded. Our conception 
does not encourage a man to fold his hands, to recognize the evil 
as inevitable, and to give it free scope, but rather incites him 
to combat it and overcome it wherever he finds it ; — indeed, 
its sole purpose in the world is to be antagonized and over- 
come. Only in this way can its existence be justified, not by 
letting it alone. An evil that is given full sway misses its 
mark. A disease that fails to stimulate the science of medi- 
cine, that is not employed as a means of exercising patience 
and benevolence ; poverty which is stolidly borne ; falsehood 
which is not opposed by the truth ; wickedness which is not 
confounded, which is not overcome by the good with good- 
ness, — all these are really evils. You make evils of them, 

1 De Civ. Dei, XL., 9. 



THE EVIL, THE BAD, AND THEODICY 333 

you who ought to turn them to good, but surrender to them 
instead, and give them free scope. 

But, it is said, if evil will abide with us, and, in a certain 
measure, must abide with us so long as the earth stands 
and humanity has historical problems to solve, will not the 
struggle be a futile one ? Of what use is it to strike off a few 
heads from Hydra if new ones are constantly to take their 
place ? Will not those who understand the nature of evil 
necessarily grow tired of the game, and resign themselves to 
fate? 

My answer is : The impulse to combat evil does not spring 
from a conception of a perfect state to be realized by the con- 
flict, but from the feeling aroused by the pressure of the 
particular evil at hand. The general belief that the satisfac- 
tion of every need, the removal of every evil, will invariably 
be followed by new ones will neither hinder action nor weaken 
its effects. Even if we should be convinced that want and 
misery, injustice and falsehood, will exist world without end, 
we shall not cease combating them wherever they show 
themselves. And this is as it should be ; the struggle can 
never be absolutely ineffectual. One result is bound to follow 
under all circumstances : our antagonism places us in the 
ranks of those who are fighting for the good and the right. 
The immediate and real purpose of every human being is not 
to obtain happiness and perfection for the human race, but to 
live his own life worthily, and this end he can realize under 
all conditions. " The important thing to the man of action is 
that he do the right ; whether the right is done or not need 
not concern him." l Whoever is guided by these thoughts will 
realize something besides. Whoever weakly succumbs to evil 
as to something that cannot be overcome, will surely be over- 
come by it ; inaction is followed by discouragement and 
weariness. So soon, however, as a man begins to defend him- 
self, he becomes conscious of his own activity and strength, 

1 Goethe, Spriiche in Prosa. 99. 



834 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

and feels that the evil which he is attacking recedes. The 
satisfaction thus experienced by him is not destroyed by the 
thought that another evil may take the place of the van- 
quished one. Let the coming generations cope with the un- 
known evils in store for them as best they may. That is not 
our concern ; sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. 

Only in a certain sense will our conception make us, not 
quietistic, but calm and patient. It makes us hopeful of the 
final outcome ; the good will conquer, for it is God's cause, it 
is the only true reality. And it softens our anger, it trans- 
forms it into the deepest pity. If the evil-doers were really 
and ultimately successful in the world, it would be difficult or 
impossible to tolerate them or to forgive them. But the evil 
does not benefit itself ; nay, it benefits the good, it serves 
as a means to its perfection, in spite of itself. Jesus does not 
part from the world with a curse upon his lips, but with a 
prayer : Forgive them, for they know not what they do. They 
will not accomplish what they desire, my death ; but they are 
working for what they do not desire ; the curse will fall upon 
them ; not my curse, but the consequences of their own deeds, 
as the eternal order of things demands. " It must needs be 
that offences come ; but woe to that man by whom the offence 
cometh." 

So, too, the great poet lets his good characters depart from 
the world without hatred and bitterness, after they have suf- 
fered the deepest and most cruel wrongs : Cordelia and Des- 
demona die in peace, without hatred. Thus they overcome 
evil with good, the evil has no power over them, it cannot 
destroy their inner peace, it is a means of testing and purify- 
ing them; the evil defeats itself and is annihilated. 

The proper use, therefore, which we should make of evil 
and wickedness is this : we should antagonize it honestly and 
energetically, and make it a means of our own perfection and, 
so far as we can, of that of others. 

On the other hand, it may also be put to a false use. We 



THE EVIL, THE BAD, AND THEODICY 335 

may either endure it stolidly and ill-humoredly and permit it 
to conquer us, or we may exercise our wits in contemplating 
and analyzing it. The latter was Hamlet's art, and the cause 
of his ruin. 

5. I wish to add a few words concerning an experience 
which we naturally regard as the greatest of all evils, death. 
Individuals die, nations die, humanity will die. Does not 
this seem like a judgment in which reality pronounces upon 
the vanity and nothingness of life ? 

That is a false view in my opinion. It is true that death at 
first sight seems to be an external necessity for the indi- 
vidual. But it is not hard to convince ourselves that its 
necessity is not an external, but an inner, teleological neces- 
sity. A saying of Goethe's is often quoted : " Death is an 
artifice of nature to have much life." It is certainly the arti- 
fice which nature employs to have historical life. Without 
change of generations, there would be no history. Immortal 
men would lead an unhistorical life, a life of whose contents 
no mind could form a picture. Moreover, without the relation 
of parents and children the virtues would be lacking which 
give human life its greatest value : love, care, reverence, 
piety. Hence, whoever desires life, historical human life, 
also desires its condition, death. 

Furthermore, a human life is not infinite in its nature ; it 
exhausts its powers and its contents. Every action, so 
physiology and psychology tell us, leaves behind it a tendency 
to repetition. Thus arise fixed habits of thought and action, 
the conditions of efficient activity. But the same principle 
that leads to evolution also leads to involution, and at last 
produces torpor. The will and the understanding gradually 
lose the flexibility which they must have to adapt themselves 
to the ever-changing problems and conditions. The old man 
at last completely loses the faculty of receiving new impres- 
sions from the external world, and, with it, the power to act 
upon them. He becomes a stranger in the world ; he has lived 



336 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

himself out of it, so to speak ; his exit is the last necessary 
step in a long journey. A timely death is not to be inter- 
preted as the overthrow of life by an external force, but as 
its inner necessary conclusion. So it is regarded by the 
friends of the dying man, and not infrequently also by 
the dying man himself. After the completion of his life 
he desires to be gathered to his fathers ; he parts from life 
with thanks to its giver. If such a death were the rule, no 
one would call it an evil, neither the survivors nor the dying 
man. He has realized his desires, and that for which he 
lived abides ; — his descendants, his nation, the true, the 
beautiful, and the good ; everything for which he lived, abides. 
It is different when death cuts off a life before its time, be- 
fore it is completed, perhaps even before it has begun. 
Here we stand as before an insoluble riddle. An epidemic 
breaks out in a town ; like a blind fate it steals through the 
multitude, attacking now this person, now that one, as 
chance decrees. Even the most cocksure interpreters of the 
ways of Providence are in the habit of confessing here that 
God's counsels are inscrutable. Indeed, it would evidently be 
presumptuous for the human mind to attempt to understand 
the teleological necessity of the particular cases. Here 
humble resignation alone is fitting. And it is possible. For 
no one knows what might have been in store for him who, 
as we say, dies before his time. Many a man would have 
been esteemed happy if an early death had spared him from 
outliving what was the joy of his life. As may be gathered 
from Solon's remark, a beautiful death in the bloom of youth 
was not regarded by the Greeks as- necessarily a misfortune. 
And the teleological necessity of the universal law that death 
does not merely take away the old and decrepit, but also 
cuts down youth in the full power and enjoyment of life, 
may also be explained in another way. The Greek sage, 
Bias of Priene, is said to have uttered the following wise 
remark : " So seek to live as though you were fated to live a 



THE EVIL, THE BAD, AND THEODICY 337 

long and a short time." 1 The thought which this maxim 
wishes to convey is this : You do not know when the end will 
come, hence arrange your life so that you may cheerfully die 
to-morrow, and also so that you may have the strength and the 
courage for a long life. To be prepared is everything ; you 
ought to be ready for life as well as for death. If you are, 
you will believe what the hymn says, that the best time for 
dying is God's time. 

When the individual dies he is uplifted by the thought that 
his life and its achievements will benefit those who come 
after him ; he himself is perpetuated in the life of his 
descendants and people. But suppose we are forced to assume 
that our people, too, will die ; yes, that the time will come 
when there shall be no more life on the earth ? Does not this 
break down the last support, the last prop, as it were, upon 
which all values are based ? And it seems hardly possible to 
escape the thought. That the peoples repeat the stages of life 
passed through by the individual, on a larger scale, or rather, 
that the individual repeats the evolution of the race on a 
small scale, is a fact which forces itself upon us. History 
shows us that nations, too, grow old and stand still. The 
stock of fixed habits of thought and action, traditional con- 
ceptions, institutions, rights and customs, gradually increases. 
Tradition robs us of the power and courage to act upon the 
world; the past weighs heavily upon the present. The ina- 
bility to adapt themselves to new conditions causes the death 
of historical institutions, although the individuals may, say 
by receiving new blood into their veins, perpetuate themselves 
and be employed with the elements of the old civilization, to 
form a new historical being. It is true, history does not 
show us that the same thing will happen to humanity as a 
whole — namely, that it will exhaust itself; but that, indeed, 

1 I find the quotation in one of the able addresses of Franz Kern, Schulreden 
bei der Entlassung von Abiturienten, 2d ed., 1887 : ovrot iretpi ^v ws Kal b\(yov na) 
iro\vv xp^ vov $iaxr6fi€vos. [See Diog. Laertius, Book I. — Tr.] , 



338 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

has it hardly begun to live as a self-conscious whole. Anal- 
ogy, however, suggests this thought, while physical reflections 
also seem to lead us to it. A world-body, too, a stellar sys- 
tem experiences something like birth, growth, and death. 
It arises through separation from a mother body, it develops, 
ripens, produces thousands of living forms ; then grows old 
and dies. The whole earth with all the living forms upon it, 
humanity included, undergoes this process. 

Would these thoughts, if they were inevitable, prove the 
worthlessness of humanity and all life ? Does the transitori- 
ness of the world prove its nothingness ? I do not believe it. 
The flower blooms but for a moment, and we have no fault to 
find. A drama, a tone-poem, has an end ; we do not believe 
that lessens its value. A finite thing cannot extend its real- 
ity into infinity, so to speak. The same may be said of the 
life of a man. It will also hold of the life of a people, nay, 
of the life of humanity ; its essence, too, is finite and is ex- 
hausted by a finite evolution. Everything finite is perish- 
able ; God alone, the Infinite One, fills all times with His 
presence. — But would not the destruction of humanity mean 
the destruction of all goods and values ? For what, then, 
have the untold generations labored, battled, and suffered ? — 
Well, surely not for a final generation, for one that is 
not to appear until the end of things. If the life of a gen- 
eration has no value in itself, if its relation to its immedi- 
ate ancestors and descendants cannot make it valuable, then 
its relation to those most remote successors cannot give it 
worth. The value of our science and philosophy, of our 
art and poetry, depends upon what they do for us ; it is ex- 
tremely doubtful whether a remote future will have any use 
for them. Scholastic philosophy has passed away ; we no 
longer prize it. That is no argument against its value. If 
it made the generations who lived in the second half of the 
Middle Ages wiser and more prudent, if, besides, it prepared 
the forces which were capable of rising above it, it did every- 



THE EVIL, THE BAD, AND THEODICY 389 

thing that could be expected, and it was perfectly proper 
for it to die after having completed its work ; no philosophy 
has eternal value. And the same may be said of poetry and 
art, of states and laws. Nothing that is earthly is imper- 
ishable, nor is its value dependent upon its imperishability. 
Life is, as a whole as well as in part, an end in itself. 

Or are we afraid that death will destroy life and its con- 
tents by hurling it into the past, and hence into nothingness ? 
But it is n't death that does this ; the passing of time does 
it at every moment. Every moment of life passes over into 
the past ; it is destroyed, if going into the past is equivalent 
to annihilation. If the past life is nothing, death does not 
have to destroy it. If, however, it is not destroyed and anni- 
hilated by being past, if it still has reality and significance, 
death can no longer destroy it. For death has no power to 
react; nay, it is nothing but cessation, the absence of con- 
tinuance. Or is the past really worthless and nothing, is 
only that real which exists now, has only that part of myself 
and my life reality which is in my consciousness at the pres- 
ent moment ? If you think so, beware lest reality dissolve 
before your very eyes. The moment has no breadth, it is a 
point in which no life can be extended. Life can exist only 
in a process of time which includes the past and the future, 
not in a moment of the present. If to be past in life means 
to be unreal, then life cannot possibly ever be a reality. But 
we shall return to this subject in a later discussion. 1 

1 Chapter VIII. [See Fechner, Zend-Avesta and Das Buchlein vom Leben 
nach dem Tode. — Tr.] 



CHAPTER V 

DUTY AND CONSCIENCE^ 

1. The Origin of the Feeling of Duty. In the preceding 
chapters we reached the conclusion: That is good which 
satisfies the will, or toward which it is by nature directed. 
We found that the will aims at the preservation and perfection 
of individual and social life. With this view the results of 
our analysis of the judgments of value which are expressed 
in language agreed: Such human acts and qualities are 
called good as have the tendency to promote the welfare of 
the agent and his surroundings. 

Here, however, we seem to be confronted with a contradic- 
tion: Good, we may also say in conformity with popular 
usage, is not to do what we will to do, but what we ought to 
do. To do good means to do our duty, and our duty does 
not seem to coincide with the natural will ; hence there is a 

1 [For explanations of conscience, see : — Rational intuitionists : the mediaeval 
schoolmen ; Cudworth ; Clarke ; Kant ; Fichte ; Janet, Theory of Morals, Bk. 
III., chap. I. ; Calderwood, Handbook, Part L, chaps. I.-VI. Emotional intuition- 
ists : Shaftesbury ; Hutcheson ; Hume ; A. Smith ; Rousseau ; Herbart ; Brentano, 
Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntniss ; Schwarz, Grundzilge der Ethik. Percep- 
tional intuitionists : Butler, Sermons on Human Nature ; Martineau, Types, vol. 
II. ; Lecky, chap. I. Empiricists : Hobbes ; Locke ; Paley ; Bentham ; James 
Mill; John Stuart Mill; Bain, The Emotions and the Will, The Emotions, chap. 
XV., The Will, chap. X., also Mental and Moral Science. Evolutionists : Darwin, 
Descent of Man, chap. IV. ; Herbert Spencer, Data of Ethics, §§ 44 ff., Induc- 
tions of Ethics, Social Statics; Stephen, Science of Ethics, pp. 311 ff. ; Ho ff ding, 
Ethik, IV. ; Jhering, vol. II., pp. 95 ff ; Wundt, Ethik, Part III., ch. I., 4, pp. 
480 ff. ; Ree, Die Entstehung des Gewissens ; Miinsterberg, Ursprung der Sittlichkeit; 
Simmel, Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft, vol. I., chap. I. ; Baldwin, Social 
Interpretations. — See also Hyslop, pp. 250-348 ; Gass, Die Lehre vom Gewissen. 
— Tr.] 



DUTY AND CONSCIENCE 341 

conflict between duty and inclination. Before the act, the 
feeling of duty opposes the inclination : it acts as a deterrent ; 
after the act, if the inclination has triumphed against the 
feeling of duty, it condemns : it was bad to do what the 
inclination characterized as good. We call that phase of 
our nature which opposes inclination and manifests itself in 
the feeling of obligation and duty, conscience. 1 

What is the meaning of this phenomenon, and how can 
we resolve the antinomy : That is good which I will, and that 
is good which I ought to do ? Or is our entire previous 
conception false ? Is the truly moral good, after all, abso- 
lutely different from the other good, the end of the natural 
will, and only like it in name ? 

An examination of the origin of the feeling of duty will 
assist us in answering this question. 

How does obligation arise in the willing being ? Whence 
this conflict between natural inclination and duty ? Is it 
something supernatural, something breaking into the unity 
of the willing being from without ? According to the 
religious view it is : for it, conscience is the voice of God. 

This notion contains a germ of truth, but it has no value 
as an explanation. We have no more right to appeal to God 
as the cause in morals than in physics. Both the natural 
law and the moral law may point to something beyond them, 
to something transcendent. But we cannot assume the 
transcendent in order to deduce from it the facts of experi- 
ence ; we must seek for the explanation within the empirical 
world ; and I believe that we can find it there. 

Darwin attempts such an explanation in the fourth chapter 
of his Descent of Man. He refers to the traces of similar 
processes among animals. A female dog is with her puppies ; 



1 [For the psychology of conscience see especially : Sully, The Human Mind, 
vol. II., pp. 155 ff. ; Baldwin, Feeling and Will, pp. 205 ff. ; Ho ff ding, Psychology, 
VI., 8, 9 ; Ladd, Descriptive Psychology, pp. 579 ff. ; Jodl, Lehrbuch der Psychologic, 
pp. 715 ff. — Tk.] 



342 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

she sees her master getting ready for the chase ; she hesi 
tates for a while and finally slinks away to them. Upoi 
the return of her master she meets him with all the signs 
of shame ; she feels remorse for having proved unfaith 
ful to him. A struggle may often be observed in domestic 
animals between different instincts, or between an instinct 
and some habitual disposition. Here we have, Darwir 
believes, the phenomenon in its most primitive form; il 
is the result of a conflict between an acquired habit oi 
the will and an original natural impulse. The feeling 
of inner compulsion to obey the acquired habit instead 
of the natural impulse is the feeling of duty in its most 
primitive form; the feeling of discomfort and shame which 
arises after the original natural impulse has been satisfied in 
spite of this opposition, is the most primitive form of re- 
morse. We might, therefore, define the latter as the reaction 
of a persistent social or artificial instinct against the gratifi- 
cation of an original impulse, which, though not permanent, 
is for the time very powerful. The condition of its appear- 
ance is a memory sufficiently developed to retain vivid 
impressions of past acts. Now, these feelings necessarily 
become especially intense in man. His memory retains the 
past longer and more faithfully, while his will is permanently 
and powerfully determined by customs, which, to a large 
extent, emancipate his conduct from temporary impulses. 

The objection is urged : This cannot explain the authorita- 
tive character which belongs to the human feeling of duty. 1 
The peculiar compulsion characteristic of obligation does 
not spring from the impulsive nature of the individual ; re- 
actions of conscience are totally different from the feelings 
aroused by the non-satisfaction of impulses. 2 Duty opposes 
the individual will with an authority which cannot be 
derived from the natural impulses. 

1 [See, for example, Schurman, Ethical Import of Darwinism, chap. V. — Tb.] 
a [Martineau, vol. II. p. 419 ff. — Tb.J 



DUTY AND CONSCIENCE 343 

I do not believe that it is impossible to explain this fact on 
the evolutionistic hypothesis. The authority of duty springs 
from the relation of the will to custom (Sitte), or, what 
amounts to the same, of the individual to society. 

By the term custom (Sitte) I mean the acts performed by 
all the members of a tribe, which correspond to the instincts 
of animals. The actions of animals are governed by three 
principles : impulse, instinct, and individual experience. 
Impulse regulates the vegetative-animal functions — nutrition, 
respiration, reproduction. The term instinct is applied to 
uniform modes of behavior which solve more complicated prob- 
lems of animal life, like nest-building, migration, etc. ; such 
as are acquired by the species in the course of its life, trans- 
mitted to individuals by heredity, and practised by them 
without knowledge of their purposiveness. They have been 
characterized as the organic intelligence of the species. 1 In 
addition to these, the animal also acquires a small measure 
of individual intelligence through its own experience. 

The same three principles again meet us in man. The 
instincts undergo the most peculiar transformation, — they 
appear as customs. The latter resemble the instincts in that 
they are stereotyped modes of conduct for the teleological 
solution of complicated life-problems, as well as in that they 
are followed without a knowledge of their purposiveness : 
they represent the intelligence of the race, in which the 
individual participates. But they differ from instinct : the 
individual knows of them ; in obeying them, however, he is not 
conscious of their purposiveness, but of their existence and 
obligation. He insists upon their observance by others as well 
as by himself, formulating them into those universal rules 
which begin with a " thou shalt" or a " thou shalt not." We 
may therefore define customs as instincts that have become 
conscious of themselves. The difference is that customs are 

1 [For the psychology of instinct, impulse, etc., see Ladd, James, Baldwin, 
Sully, Hoffding, etc. — Tb.] 



344 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

not, like instincts, inherited organically as natural charac- 
teristics, but transmitted by conscious activity, through educa- 
tion. Moreover, customs are upheld by the conscious action of 
the community : an animal that does not obey its instincts is 
left to suffer the natural consequences of its behavior ; a 
man who acts contrary to custom causes a reaction in his 
surroundings, which may assume many forms, all the way from 
a scarcely perceptible form of disapproval to extermination. 1 
Let us take an example. Among many higher animals the 
sexual function is governed by a peculiar instinct. Their 
intercourse is not promiscuous, but one male lives with 
one or more females, at least during the breeding season, 
jealously excluding other males. This habit is noticed in 
anthropoid apes, among others ; they are either monogamous or 
polygamous, each family living separately, or several families 
living associated in a body ; but under all circumstances the 
male jealously excludes all rivals. 2 Hence, instinct regulates 
the function of reproduction so as to hinder promiscuous 
intercourse as much as possible ; an arrangement which 
doubtless tends to preserve life. — In man we find the same 
thing in the custom of monogamous and polygamous marriage. 
The custom is impressed upon the succeeding generation by 
education, particularly upon the female ; it is established in 
the individual by the virtues of modesty and chastity. 
Whatever offends against these is kept out of reach, and 
every open breach of propriety is frowned upon as abominable 
and detestable. The social environment continues the process 
of education : deviations from the rules of chastity are severely 
censured, especially in women and by women ; the disapproval 
of the surroundings is shown by the change in their attitude 
towards the offenders. In case the custom itself is violated, 



1 Wundt also compares instinct with custom, Ethik, pp. 88 ff . [Eng. trans, 
pp. 127 ff.]. See also in the same place interesting discussions on the relation be- 
tween custom and law, usage, habit, fashion, and worship. 

7 Darwin, Descent of Man., ch. XX. 



DUTY AND CONSCIENCE 345 

a stronger reaction ensues ; the unmarried woman is excluded 
from marriage, and a man who marries her and thereby abro- 
gates the punishment is himself punished with contempt. In 
case, however, the offender is a married woman, custom 
demands the punishment of each of the guilty parties, the 
punishment being especially severe among polygamous 
nations. 

We may, perhaps, find a similar basis for other customs in 
natural instincts. Thus, for example, the custom upon which 
the oldest legal codes were universally based, the custom pro- 
hibiting the killing, assault, or robbery of a member of the 
same tribe, may have sprung from the instinct which hinders 
the individuals of a herd from attacking each other. The 
relation of authority and obedience, which reaches its highest 
perfection in the state, is also present, in germ, in the animal 
herd. 

We can now understand why duty does not appear to be 
rooted in the will of the individual, but seems to be some- 
thing external to him, something opposing him with absolute 
authority. Custom forms the original content of duty . In the 
higher stages of development the relation between duty and 
custom changes ; duty gradually assumes a more personal 
and individual character ; a point to which I shall return 
later on. But, originally, duty enjoined a life in accordance 
with custom. Popular usage follows the old conception when it 
calls dutiful behavior sittlich (customary ; moral), undutiful 
conduct, unsitilich. Hence we may say: Duty is invested 
with the authority of custom. In it the will of parents and 
educators, the will of ancestors, the will of the people, speak 
to the individual will. To these highest human authorities, 
a still higher and final authority, the authority of the gods, is 
universally added. The gods, who are made in the image of 
man, admit into their nature the will of the people that 
creates them. As religion develops, they uniformly become 
the guardians of custom and law. This triple authority of 



346 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

parents, people, and gods, reveals itself in the sense of duty : 
it is a feeling of obligation to a higher will, which sets a 
limit to the inclinations. To be sure, this higher will is not 
supra-powerful, like one governing by force or fear ; it is 
acknowledged internally by the individual will as one having 
absolute right to command, as one which must, under all cir- 
cumstances, be obeyed, even where it has not the power to 
compel. 1 

2. Relation between Duty and Inclination. We return to the 
question raised at the outset. What is the relation between 
the good in the sense of the dutiful, and the good as 
something which agrees with our inclinations and promotes 
welfare ? 

In the light of our previous discussions, we may now say : 
The two conceptions of the good are harmonized in the inter- 
mediate notion of custom (Sitte). Customs are, like in- 
stincts, to which they were found to be analogous, purposive 
modes of behavior for solving the various problems of life. 
They conduce to the preservation of the social whole which 
creates them, and to the normal development of the individ- 
uals of whom the whole consists. In so far as duty 
requires the individual to regulate his acts according to cus- 
tom, dutiful conduct will tend to promote the welfare of the 
individual and his surroundings. And inasmuch as the will 
of every individual primarily aims at this end, the will ulti- 
mately aims at what duty demands. Inclination and custom, 
the individual will and the social will, tend, on the whole, to 
determine conduct in the same way. — Thus, to come back to 
our example, custom demands that sexual life conform to 
monogamous or polygamous marriage. In reality, the will of 
the individual naturally aims at the same thing ; only in ex- 
ceptional cases do our inclinations deviate from the normal. 
Custom prohibits the individual from killing, robbing, or 

1 [For a more detailed account of the view advanced in this paragraph, gee 
Spencer and Bain. — Tr.] 



DUTY AND CONSCIENCE 347 

injuring his fellows. In the last analysis, the will of the indi- 
vidual is also opposed to this ; he desires the life and welfare 
of his tribe, he also desires to live in peace and friendship with 
the members of his tribe. That is the meaning of the ancient 
phrase : Man is by nature an animal sociale ; only in rare, ex- 
ceptional cases is injury done to a member of the tribe, 
namely, when the individual will cannot gain a particular pri- 
vate end in any other way. Custom as such aims at the 
preservation and welfare of the collective body. Fixed, well- 
regulated domestic relations, inner peace and security, are ap- 
parently essential conditions of the welfare of a community as 
such. If a tribe or people were wholly without them, or if de- 
viations from them were the rule, the tribe would necessarily 
succumb, in the struggle for existence, to neighboring tribes 
having a firmly established moral order. But the welfare 
of the community includes the welfare of the individuals, 
indeed the community does not exist apart from its mem- 
bers. Hence we may also say that custom aims at the pres- 
ervation and welfare of the individual. And in so far as 
the individual desires the preservation and welfare of his own 
life, he desires exactly what custom desires. Indeed he can- 
not realize his welfare except as custom prescribes, — on 
the one hand, because this is the most appropriate means 
of solving a particular problem of life, on the other, because 
departures from custom would produce a conflict between 
him and the whole, which would necessarily react unfavor- 
ably upon his individual welfare. Hence custom and the 
individual will, duty and inclination, really affect conduct in 
the same way. Conflicts between the two are accidental and 
exceptional. 

What a firm hold custom has upon the will of the individ- 
ual may be noticed when a custom is violated. All the mem- 
bers of the community at once rise in its defence ; they must 
consequently desire the stability and supremacy of custom. 
Only in occasional isolated cases does the individual desire an 



348 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

exception to be made in his favor. A custom obeyed by no 
one and supported by no one would no longer be a custom. 
The law of custom is therefore also a natural law in the sense 
that the formula is an expression of actual, universal occur- 
rences, and not merely of pure obligation. 

But how does it happen that duty and inclination oppose 
each other in consciousness, if not uniformly, at least fre- 
quently ? — I believe this may be explained as follows : The 
individual becomes clearly conscious of custom only when his 
inclinations are directed towards something contrary to cus- 
tom. So long as they conform to custom, conscience has 
nothing to say to him ; silence gives consent. Conjugal affec- 
tion is not felt as a duty, but when the impulse takes a differ- 
ent direction, custom arises in consciousness and declares that 
the satisfaction of such impulses is contrary to duty. The 
inclination to marry is not felt as a duty ; only in case the 
impulses no longer tend in the direction of matrimony, as 
happened during the decline of the ancient nations, is mar- 
riage regarded as a duty by the community, and felt to be 
such by the individual. We do not speak of the duty of liv- 
ing, because the will naturally aims at life. But whenever a 
man feels an inclination to abandon life, he becomes conscious 
of the fact that suicide is immoral, and that it is a duty to 
live. We do not look upon the satisfaction of hunger as a 
duty, but if it is a duty to live, it surely must be a duty to 
satisfy hunger. So long as we satisfy our hunger according 
to custom and usage, the voice of duty is silent, but when we 
feel inclined to violate custom, it appears in consciousness, 
say for example, as a prohibition against excess or a parti- 
cular kind of food. So, too, we feel it to be our duty to 
acquire and preserve property only when the natural impulse 
to acquire and possess is absent ; as a rule, we regard it as a 
duty merely to limit the impulse ; hence the command : Thou 
shalt not steal, cheat, be avaricious, greedy, or extravagant. 
We do not feel that it is our duty to speak ; inclination impels 



DUTY AND CONSCIENCE 349 

us to do it ; it is a duty to limit the desire ; hence the com- 
mand : Thou shalt not be garrulous and indiscreet, thou shalt 
not lie. — It may therefore be said that duty uniformly arises 
as a limitation of impulses, whose existence it presupposes ; 
without impulses there would be no duty. It is in its 
origin essentially negative : Thou shalt not is the formula 
with which custom, law, duty, originally oppose the indi- 
vidual when his impulses go too far. The positive formula 
does not read : Thou shalt, but : I will. Only when the natural 
impulse or will is lacking does the formula of duty make 
its appearance, and change the : I will, into the : Thou 
shalt. 

Hence a contradiction between duty and inclination is to 
be explained as an exception. The commands of duty or the 
moral laws are formulae expressing the nature and direc- 
tion of the real will of a community, which, as a rule, mani- 
fests itself in all the members of the same. It is no more 
strange that there should be exceptions in these rules than in 
physiology ; they are empirical laws of exceedingly com- 
plicated phenomena. There are blind men and deaf men, and 
yet it is the rule that men have sight, hearing, and speech. 
Similarly, the existence of adultery, theft, and falsehood does 
not do away with the rule that men live in permanent families, 
possess property, and give expression to their inner states in 
speech. When we look at a people as a whole, the matter be- 
comes perfectly plain : obligation and will coincide, the people 
wills its customs and laws, for these are not imposed from 
without; — they are the expressions of the nation's particular 
will. Will and obligation do not entirely coincide in the in- 
dividual ; there are cases in which he wills what he ought not 
to do, and conversely : then he looks upon the law as some- 
thing outside of him, as something limiting his will. Generally 
speaking, however, he too wills what custom wills, and is always 
ready to assist in hindering deviations on the part of others, if 
not in deed at least in word and thought. 



35U CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

3. Critique of the Kantian View, 1 According to Kant the 
conflict between inclination and the feeling of duty is essen- 
tial to morality. An act, in his opinion, has moral worth, 
only when the feeling of duty determines the will, in the absence 
of all inclinations or in spite of them. Hence he does not re- 
gard it as meritorious to do good from inclination. The "Vicar 
of Wakefield confessed that nothing gave him greater pleasure 
than to make people happy ; and that he was not unsuccessful in 
his efforts his friends are well aware. But, according to Kant, 
the moralist would have to say that " an action of this kind, 
however proper, however amiable it may be, has nevertheless 
no true moral worth, but is on a level with other inclinations. 
. . . For the maxim lacks the moral import ; namely, that 
such actions be done from duty, not from inclination. Put 
the case that the mind of that philanthropist were clouded by 
sorrow of his own, extinguishing all sympathy with the lot of 
others, and that while he still has the power to benefit others 
in distress, he is not touched by their trouble because he is 
absorbed with his own ; and now suppose that he tears him- 
self out of this dead insensibility, and performs the action 
without any inclination to it, but simply from duty, then first 
has his action its genuine moral worth." 2 The same is true 
of the preservation of one's own life and the promotion of 
one's own happiness : " The anxious care which most men 
take for it has no intrinsic worth." " On the other hand, if 
adversity and hopeless sorrow have completely taken away 
the relish for life ; if the unfortunate one, strong in mind, 
indignant at his fate rather than desponding or dejected, 
wishes for death, and yet preserves . his life without loving 
it — not from inclination or fear, but from duty — then his 
maxim has a moral worth." 3 

1 [Janet, Theory of Morals, Book III., chap. V. ; Mackenzie, Manual, chap. 
IV., §§ 8 ff. ; Mnirhead, Elements, § 56 ; Bradley, Ethical Studies, Essay IV. — Tr.] 

2 Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, Hartenstein's edition, IV., p. 246. 
[Abbott's translation, Kant's Theory of Ethics, p. 14.] 

3 Ibidem. 



DUTY AND CONSCIENCE 351 

This view of Kant's called forth the ridicule of Schiller's 
well-known lines. A pupil of the critical ethics reveals to the 
master his scruples of conscience : 

" Gern dien' ich den Freimden, doch thu' ich es leider mit Neigung, 
Und so wurmt es mieli oft, dass ich nicht tugendbaft bin." * 

Whereupon he receives the following advice : 

" Da ist kein andrer Rath, du musst' sucben sie zu veracbten, 
Und mit Abscbeu alsdann thun, was die Pflicbt dir gebeut." 2 

This ridicule, we must confess, is not undeserved. Accord- 
ing to Kant's theory, a man's worth depends entirely upon his 
ability to eliminate inclinations and impulses from his will, 
and to determine it solely by the feeling of duty. Such a 
human being, doing his duty solely for duty's sake, is the 
most wooden mannikin ever constructed by a system-builder. 
Nevertheless, there is a germ of truth in the view. The con- 
flict between duty and inclination is not the rule, and the 
suppression of inclination by the feeling of duty is not the 
condition of all moral worth. Still we may say that the true 
moral character is plainly revealed in such a conflict. When 
a rich man finds a purse on the street and restores it to its 
/awful owner, we look upon his conduct as perfectly natural, 
without regarding it as an evidence of remarkable honesty. 
The man is perhaps on his way to the stock exchange, where 
he may, by skilfully manipulating the market, deprive a fellow- 
speculator of his entire fortune without feeling the slightest 
compunction. When, however, a poor man finds himself in 
a similar position, and, actuated by the feeling of duty to 
return the money, resists his desire to appropriate what is 
not his, we recognize this as a strong proof of his honesty, 
nay of his morality. So it is everywhere : where there has 

1 [Gladly I serve my friends, but, alas ! I do it from inclination, hence I am 
plagued with the doubt that I am not virtuous. — See Schiller's distich-group, 
Die PhilosopJien. — Te.] 

2 [Your only resource is to try to despise them, and then to do with aversion 
that which duty enjoins upon you.] 



352 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

never been a conflict between inclination and duty, where the 
will has never had an opportunity of deciding against incli- 
nation and for duty, the character has not been tested. We 
have no assurance of moral trustworthiness until the will has 
shown itself proof against temptation. 

On the other hand, we shall not concede that a will which 
always naturally inclines to the right, is on that account less 
worthy than one which has had to battle for its rectitude 
against an unwilling or dangerous temperament. Kant leans 
to this view. " If nature," we read in the same place, " has 
put little sympathy in the heart of this or that man : if 
he, supposed to be an upright man, is by temperament cold and 
indifferent to the sufferings of others, perhaps because in 
respect of his own he is provided with the special gift of pa- 
tience and fortitude, and supposes, or even requires, that 
others should have the same — and such a man would cer- 
tainly not be the meanest product of nature — but if nature 
had not specially framed him for a philanthropist, would he not 
still find in himself a source from whence to give himself a, far 
higher worth than that of a good-natured temperament could be ? 
Unquestionably. It is just in this that the moral worth of the 
character is brought out which is incomparably the highest of all, 
namely, that he is beneficent, not from inclination but from 
duty." 1 Such a man would certainly be an estimable man, 
much more so than an effeminate, will-less person, who yielded 
to the promptings of a compassionate heart ; it does not seem 
improbable to me that Kant was thinking of himself when he 
drew this picture ; nevertheless such a character would not be 
the highest and most perfect type of human nature imaginable. 
An angel from heaven would, according to the Kantian for- 
mula, necessarily lack the moral worth " which is incom- 
parably the highest of all," in so far as his " temperament " 
would not be in need of and capable of being improved by 
the will. And yet who would reproach him for this defect ? 

1 [Abbott's translation, pp. 14-15.] 



DUTY AND CONSCIENCE 353 

In the poem Das Q-luck Schiller contrasts two persons : the 
one has, through his own exertions, made an honest man of 
himself, while the other has been endowed by the gods with 
a beautiful and noble nature. He calls the latter happy, and 
assigns to him the higher rank in the moral order : 

Vor Unwiirdigem kann dich der Wille, der ernste, bewahren, 
Alles Hochste, es kommt frei von den Gottern herab. 1 

He expresses the same idea in a similar poem : Der Genius : 

Muss ich dem Trieb misstraun, der leise mich warnt, dem Gesetze, 

Das du selber, Natur, mir in den Busen gepragt, 

Bis auf die ewige Schrift die Schul' ihr Siegel gedriicket, 

Und der Formel Gef ass bindet den fliichtigen Geist ? 2 

He answers the question : 

Hast du, Gliicklicher, nie den schiitzenden Engel verloren, 
Nie des frommen Instincts liebende Warnung verwirkt : 
O dann gehe du hin in deiner kostlichen Unschuld 1 
Dich kann die Wissenschaft nichts lehren, sie lerne von dir ! 
Jenes Gesetz, das mit ehernem Stab den Straubenden lenket, 
Dir nicht gilt's. Was du thust, was dir gefallt, ist Gesetz. 8 

Indeed, Kant, and Fichte still more, exaggerate the role 
which the consciousness of duty is destined to play in life. 
Not only is it not true that we are impelled at every step we 
take by the consciousness of duty, but we cannot even regard 
this as a fault. It is neither conceivable nor desirable that the 
natural impulses should be replaced by the " respect for the 
moral law " as the sole motive of the will. The moral phil- 

1 [The will, the serious will, can guard thee against unworthy things ; but every- 
thing great is freely bestowed by the gods.] 

2 [Must I distrust the impulse which silently warns me, the law which thou 
thyself, Nature, hast written upon my heart, until the school has set its seal 
upon the eternal impress, and the rigid formula binds the soaring spirit ?] 

8 [If thou hast never, thou blessed one, lost thy guardian angel, and hast never 
suppressed the loving warning of the pious instinct ; O then go on in thy precious 
innocence ! Science can teach thee nothing, nay, let her learn from thee ! 
That law, which with an iron rod rules the resisting ones, is not meant for 
thee. What thou dost, what pleases thee, is law.] 



354 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

osophers, to be sure, are all inclined to regard that as the 
most perfect state in which the action of the will is solely de- 
termined by the idea of duty. Spinoza's sage is governed 
wholly by the dictates of reason (ex dictamine rationis ducitur), 
the impulses no longer influence his conduct ; and the wise 
man of Bentham or Mill does not essentially differ from him. 
Indeed, they are both modelled after the Stoic and Epicurean 
sage. In the real world, the reason or the idea of duty does 
not play so important a part. It is a necessary regulator of 
the natural impulses, but it cannot replace them ; the im- 
pulses are the weights, so to speak, which keep the clockwork 
of life in motion ; the reason cannot take their place, it has 
no motive force of its own. 

Kant is here still entangled in the notions of the old ration- 
alism, whose power, it must be confessed, he did so much to 
break. In the following period, nature again received her due, 
the fundamental conception being that the highest and best is 
not invented by the reason and made according to conscious 
rule, but is the result of an unconscious growth. This holds 
true of the good no less than of the beautiful ; the beautiful 
is not thought out and produced by rational reflection, ac- 
cording to the rules of aesthetics, any more than the good and 
perfect is planned and manufactured according to the rules of 
ethics. The true work of art is unconsciously conceived 
and produced by the genius ; aesthetics does not play an im- 
portant part in the process. So, too, the moral genius, " the 
beautiful soul," safely guided by instinct, lives a good and 
beautiful life, without constantly reflecting upon the moral 
law. The rules of aesthetics and ethics possess no inherent 
motive power. It is their province to guard against trans- 
gressions ; they are not productive, but restrictive. And it 
is by no means necessary that the rule be present in con- 
sciousness during the production of the work of art or moral 
act, or even occupy the centre of attention ; this would impede 
and disturb the process of organic growth. It is a well- 



DUTY AND CONSCIENCE 355 

known fact that when we begin to reflect upon rules of 
spelling in writing, we become confused and uncertain. The 
easiest way to answer a question in orthography is to write 
the word mechanically. Similarly, many a man decides a 
moral question better and with greater certainty by perform- 
ing the act than by reflecting upon it. As Goethe says : 

All unser redlichstes Bemiihn 

Gliickt nur im unbewussten Momente. 1 

Hence the unbiassed mind will not make the moral worth 
of a man dependent upon whether he thinks much of duty and 
is conscious of it as a motive. The designedly-moral character 
is apt to possess something of that " intentionality " which 
makes such an unfavorable impression upon us, when com- 
pared with the natural disposition. I do not know whether 
the descriptions which are given of Kant's life are absolutely 
faithful, whether Kant really was such a living clockwork, 
having duty as the mainspring ; but I must confess that these 
descriptions have never pleased me. The feeling of duty 
may have prevented much evil in the world, but the beautiful 
and the good have never sprung from the feeling of duty, but 
from the living impulses of the heart. 

The creative artists are all familiar with this thought ; it is 
constantly emphasized by the poets, by Goethe and Schiller, 
as well as by Riickert : 

Mein Herz, sieh an den Baum in seiner Bliitenpracht ; 
Es wird ihm gar nicht schwer, was ihn so herrlich macht 
Aus seineni Innern seheint, er braucht sich nicht zu zwingen, 
Ein Strom von Lust und Licht und Liebe zu entspringen, 
Mit Miihe ringt er nicht, das Einzle zu gebaren, 
Das Ganze lebt und wirkt, er lasset es gewahren, 
Du solltest deine Pflicht, wie er die seine, thun, 
Dann warest du so licht, und bist so triibe nun. 

4. Let me add a remark concerning a few other errors of 
the a-prioristic-intuitionalistic moral philosophy. It asserts 

i [All our best endeavors succeed only in the unconscious moment. — Tk.J 



35$ CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

that the laws of duty are axiomatic formulae, which are recog- 
nized with immediate and intuitive certainty, like the mathe- 
matical axioms. The propositions : Just and honest action is 
good, Lying and cheating is bad, are accepted as absolutely 
true as soon as they are understood. It is neither necessary 
nor possible to prove their validity. 

We shall have to concede that the moral laws are im- 
mediately and universally recognized as valid propositions. 
They are nothing but the positive or negative expressions of 
custom, and every member of the community is conscious of 
custom, if he has any part in the life of the community. He 
knows of custom (Sitte) through the countless particular judg- 
ments by which others and he himself have approved and dis- 
approved of acts ; the certainty with which he immediately 
decides in individual cases depends upon practice. He also 
knows of custom through universal formulae ; commandments 
and prohibitions have been impressed upon him from child- 
hood up ; and Schopenhauer says, not without reason, that 
truths which we do not remember having learned are regarded 
as innate. Moreover, language has incorporated moral judg- 
ments into the meaning of the words which designate modes 
of conduct: the terms falsehood and avarice express disap- 
proval, just as frankness and frugality express approval. 
Hence the proposition : Falsehood is bad, is an " analytic " 
judgment which is formed a priori. Finally, it is no less cer- 
tain that the moral laws arise in consciousness as " categorical 
imperatives " : they do not counsel us to promote individual 
or universal happiness, but appear as absolute commands and 
prohibitions. So far, therefore, intuitional ethics asserts facts 
which cannot be doubted. But it is in error when it goes on 
to claim that these imperatives are objectively groundless, and 
that the sole business of ethics consists in systematizing the 
particular commandments and prohibitions, and perhaps in 
subsuming them under a universal principle, say for example, 
their fitness to become universal law. There is unquestion- 



DUTY AND CONSCIENCE 357 

ably an objective ground for the existence and validity of the 
moral laws, which appear in consciousness in the form of ab- 
solute commands and prohibitions ; their observance is the 
condition of the welfare of the individual and the species. 
And it is the business of moral philosophy to discover this 
ground, just as it is the business of a philosophy of law to ex- 
plain the raison d'etre of law, that is, to prove its teleological 
necessity by indicating the problems of human collective life 
which it solves. Inventories and codifications will never 
make a science, least of all a philosophical science. 

Another error to which intuitional ethics inclines is the 
error that conscience invariably reveals to everybody, with 
subjective certainty and objective infallibility, what duty de- 
mands. Thus Kant contends that " the commonest intelli- 
gence can easily and without hesitation see " what the moral 
law requires to be done ; or, "what duty is, is plain of itself to 
every one ; but what is to bring true durable advantage, such 
as will extend to the whole of one's existence, is always veiled 
in impenetrable obscurity." 1 

The latter statement is certainly true ; but it is as cer- 
tainly not true that no one is ever in doubt as to what duty 
demands. In many cases, of course, our duty seems perfectly 
clear immediately, but by no means in all. 

An official of an insurance company, in violation of the 
rules of his corporation, shows partiality to an insurer, and 
receives compensation for his act. That is theft, says con- 
science. He does the same thing, to please a colleague, or 
because of his friendship for a neighbor, but without gain 
to himself. That is contrary to duty, says his conscience, 
you are employed to use your best endeavors to promote the 
interests of the company and to protect it against loss. But 
let us again change the conditions, let us say that the insured 
has fulfilled all his obligations to the company, but has 

1 See Critique of Practical Reason, Book I., ch. I., § 8, Remark II,, Abbott's 
translation, p. 12G. 



358 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

overlooked a trifling, purely technical detail, and that this 
oversight legally releases the company from its obligations. 
Let us imagine that, upon the day of payment, the official acci- 
dentally discovers the mistake. He knows that the company 
can refuse payment. But he also knows that, unless the 
payment is made, the insured or his heirs will suffer extreme 
hardships. The company, however, is paying a dividend of 
eighty per cent. What shall he do ? Has he the right to 
overlook the mistake ? Or shall he appeal to the company's 
sense of justice ? As though he did not know that corpora- 
tions have no souls ! His conscience does not tell him what 
to do. — Can a Kantian with his magic formula : Act as if the 
maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal 
law of nature, reacli an unambiguous conclusion? 

It is undoubtedly contrary to duty to gain possession of my 
neighbor's property by burglary or theft. But there are other 
means : he is in trouble, and I can lend him money, and I 
can by skilful operations get hold of his property in a lawful 
way. That is usury, says conscience. But to another man's 
conscience it may seem perfectly proper: what is not pro- 
hibited is allowable ; business is business, and everybody will 
have to look out for himself. But let us modify the case. 
Is it right for me to lend a man money at interest, when I 
know that it is to my advantage, but not to his, to do so ? 
Must I at least first convince myself that I am not benefit- 
ing myself at his expense ? And how about commercial 
transactions ? A banker is in possession of a piece of news 
that is not yet known to others ; say, for example, he has 
heard of a revolution in Spain. He sells his Spanish bonds, 
and the buyers, instead of him, lose a million, as the next 
morning shows. Is that right? A beginner on the stock- 
exchange may feel somewhat ill at ease after such a venture. 
His conscience reminds him : Do not do unto others as you 
would not have them do unto you ; he would presumably not 
like to look his customers in the face the next day. But 



DUTY AND CONSCIENCE 359 

shall I first inquire, every time I make a trade, whether the 
other party is going to suffer thereby ? But that is impossible. 
Commerce is possible only on the assumption that both 
parties are tacitly agreed that each is guarding his own 
interests, and expects the other to do the same. Even the 
most honest woman buys where she can buy the cheapest, 
without asking whether the seller can exist under the cir- 
cumstances ; and every seller takes what he can get without 
asking whether his goods are worth so much to the buyers 
or not. Where shall we draw the line between that which 
is unquestionably right and that which is unquestionably 
wrong ? 

The above cases are taken from the sphere of common 
honesty, and are comparatively simple. The difficulties be- 
come still more apparent when we consider more com- 
plicated, delicate, personal relations. A young man has 
promised a girl to marry her; must he keep his promise? 
Certainly, he has given his word — his word is sacred. But it 
happened at a time and under conditions in which he was 
not wholly master of himself; he now sees that he cannot 
keep his word without getting into all kinds of trouble. 
Can he break the engagement without her consent ? But 
what would promises be worth if they could be broken as soon 
as we found it inconvenient to keep them? But he was de- 
ceived in the person, he was deluded into taking the step by 
all sorts of feminine artifices, and now he finds, upon closer 
acquaintance, that it would be intolerable for him to live with 
her, that it would be as much of a misfortune for her as for 
him : what ought he to do ? She will not give him up ; ought 
he to marry her, or to keep putting it off from year to 
year, or shoot himself through the head ? Or would it be 
right and dutiful to say, I cannot and I will not? 

A politician or a statesman differs from the party or the 
government to which he belongs. A platform is made or a 
manifesto published in which the point at issue is emphasized 



360 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

as an essential doctrine of the party, or as a special aim of 
the government. He is asked to sign the paper. What 
ought he to do ? Sign it ? But then he would be subscrib- 
ing to a lie. Leave the party ? By doing this, he would not 
only end his public career, but perhaps also seriously damage 
the cause which he is supporting. What shall he do ? Will an 
appeal to the Kantian formula of duty tell him ? I do not be- 
lieve it. He will ask himself whether it is a matter of great 
importance. If not, then it will be possible for him to com- 
promise ; for how could there be co-operation without compro- 
mise ? If, however, the matter is of vital importance, he will 
say to himself : It is better for me to separate from my col- 
leagues than to be an insincere and half-hearted follower. — 
But what are the essentials ? — When the German bishops 
who opposed the dogma of infallibility, accepted the dogma 
after the decision had been rendered, they were bitterly re- 
proached. Ought they to have continued in their opposition, 
and left the church ? But could they not justly have said the 
church is more than a piece of church constitution ? Still, 
does any one among them recall those days with any degree of 
satisfaction ? And has any one of those who took the opposite 
course reproached himself for it ? 

But, it i iA ay be retorted, this makes all moral questions 
uncertain, and subjects them to unbridled casuistry. I do 
not believe that it makes them uncertain, they are uncertain, 
and will always remain so. The matter is really not so 
simple as those imagine who hold that an innate power, called 
practical reason, or conscience, infallibly regulates a man's 
conduct by subsuming each case under a general rule. The 
problem surely does not consist merely in deciding given 
cases according to a ready-made formula. 

The mistaken idea that there can be no doubt in particular 
cases concerning what is dutiful or undutiful connects itself 
with another error, peculiar to intuitional ethics, that the 
laws of morality are laws with absolutely no exceptions, and 



DUTY AND CONSCIENCE 361 

that every act not agreeing with the formula of the law must 
be contrary to duty, and immoral. We have already touched 
upon this point above (pp. 233 ff.). Inasmuch as it most 
clearly emphasizes the difference between the two schools of 
moral philosophy, I shall again consider it here. 

Kant regards the absolute logical necessity of the moral 
laws as the backbone of his entire theory ; according to him, 
uniformity (Gesetzmas&igkeit) is inseparable from morality. 
For teleological ethics, on the other hand, the moral laws 
are empirical laws, like the laws of physiology, or the rules 
of dietetics based upon them. Like all empirical laws they 
are open to exceptions. Although it is undoubtedly true that 
certain modes of conduct have the tendency to promote or, 
as the case may be, to injure the life of the agent and his sur- 
roundings, it is always possible, owing to the great complexity 
of human relations, for circumstances to arise in which the 
natural effect is changed into its opposite. Hence the formal 
breach of a moral law may become morally possible, nay 
necessary. We are never in doubt about this when it comes 
to actual practice. That intuitional ethics cannot explain this 
fact is a further proof of its insufficiency. 

Let us take an example. The first duty of the soldier is 
obedience, unconditional obedience in the service. Military 
obedience is a fundamental condition of the existence of the 
modern state. With what terrible seriousness we regard this 
duty may be seen from the severity of the penalties imposed 
for the slightest infraction of the rule. Nevertheless, circum- 
stances can arise under which this duty may be violated with- 
out remorse and without reproach. In the convention of 
Tauroggen General York made a treaty with the enemy on his 
own responsibility, basing his action upon his individual 
opinion of the political situation, in open opposition to the 
commands of the king, and, therefore, openly breaking the 
rule of military obedience. Was the act contrary to duty, 
and therefore morally wrong? Certainly, according to the 



362 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

Kantian formula. York surely could not have willed that the 
maxim of his action become a universal law of nature and 
determine the actions of the Prussian soldier, as, for instance : 
When the situation of the country seems to you to demand a 
different course of conduct from the one ordered by the com- 
mander-in-chief, then act according to your own judgment and 
contrary to his command. Nevertheless, York decided after 
much hesitation, to do that very thing. The outcome was 
doubtful ; his conduct might, to say nothing of the breach of 
obedience and the bad example, have caused the ruin of 
the State. And yet he acted as he did. It seemed possible 
to him to save the country from a humiliating and unten- 
able position at that particular time, perhaps only at that 
time and only by his independent action. The results justi- 
fied his conduct ; the king himself afterwards recognized 
this, and history now praises York's decision ; even a French 
historian will hardly blame him. This amounts to a con- 
fession that cases can occur, in which the safety of the 
country may demand of an officer what the fundamental law 
of the service prohibits : independent action in political 
questions, against the express command of the government. 
No general rule can state when such an emergency exists. 
We can lay down as the only possible universal rule : The 
soldier must obey, and under no circumstances shall he be 
impelled by independent political reflections to act contrary to 
his orders. But nevertheless a condition is tacitly added : 
Provided the welfare of the country does not make a different 
procedure absolutely necessary. Salus populi suprema lex: 
an awfully dangerous, yet never-to-be-abolished proviso of all 
particular laws, even of the most inviolable. It is just that a 
mistaken appeal to this law on the part of the soldier should 
be punished with death. 

There is no moral law which is not subject to the same 
condition, none, therefore, that does not admit of exceptions. 
Like the Sabbath, the moral laws are made for man, not man 



DUTY AND CONSCIENCE 3t>3 

for the moral laws. The jurists have an old maxim : Fiat 
Justitia,pereat mundus. In accordance with this, the Kantian 
moral philosophy says : Fiat lex, pereat vita. There is a good 
reason for the formula : the stability of law is more important 
than such and such a particular purpose ; but, ultimately, the 
law exists for the sake of the people, to preserve them and not 
to destroy them. And the same relation obtains between the 
moral law and human life. Ultimately it owes its value 
solely to the fact that it has the tendency to preserve life and 
not to destroy it. Should a case arise in which obedience to 
the law would produce permanent ruin, the form must give 
way to the content, the means to the end. We shall have oc- 
casion, later on, to show that the particular moral laws are 
subject to this condition ; the lie of necessity, the necessary 
wrong, which the jurists call the law of necessity, are such 
exceptions. 

5. Conscience. We defined conscience as the consciousness 
of custom or the existence of custom in the consciousness of the 
individual. The authority with which it speaks is the au- 
thority of all those who support and protect custom and law 
against the particular deviating will: first, the authority of 
parents and teachers, who impress custom or objective moral- 
ity upon the soul of the child ; then the authority of the wider 
circles, which pronounce judgment upon the conduct of the 
individual by the bestowal of praise and blame, honor and 
disgrace ; further, the authority of the law and the magistracy, 
which deters the offender by threats and punishments ; finally, 
the authority of the gods, which surrounds custom and law 
with religious awe. The individual compares his conduct 
with the standard thus sanctioned and protected, and regulates 
his individual will according to the universal will, which, after 
all, is his own general or fundamental will. Hence arise those 
emotions which are experienced before the deed as the de- 
terrent or impelling conscience, and after the deed, as 
remorse or moral satisfaction, The content of conscience is 



364 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

varied, as varied as the customs themselves, which the differ- 
ent tribes and nations evolve according to their different 
natures and different conditions of life. The form, however, 
is universally the same : a knowledge of a higher will, by 
which the individual will feels itself internally bound. This 
higher will, is, in the last analysis, universally regarded as 
the will of a superhuman, of a divine power. 

Those who interpret conscience as a voice from above, and 
regard their conception as an explanation of its origin, reject 
the historical-psychological explanation, not only as an unsat- 
isfactory, but even dangerous theory : it robs conscience of its 
sanctity, and hence also destroys its efficacy. And this con- 
clusion is not infrequently accepted by those at whom it is 
aimed. Thus P. R£e, in his subtle work on the Origin 
of Conscience?- holds : " The practical consequence of the his- 
torical-psychological examination is that the commands of 
conscience will lose their sanctity ; whoever knows how human 
were the agencies which produced conscience loses the abso- 
lute fear of violating its commands." 2 

I cannot share this view. It does not seem to me that the 
loss of the authority of conscience is either a logical conse- 
quence or a necessary psychological effect of the anthropolog- 
ical explanation. It is not a logical consequence, for why 
should the moral laws lose their validity because we are con- 
vinced that they express the experience gradually acquired by 
the race in regard to what is wholesome and harmful ? On 
the contrary, what stronger proof can we desire than the 
hereditary wisdom of a people ? In conscience we have the 
subjective reflex of the objective natural order of moral life, 
as it has developed in custom and law ; surely this knowledge 
cannot destroy the validity or the teleological necessity of the 

1 Ur sprung des Gewissens. 

2 [See also Guy an, Esquisse d'une morale sans obligation ni sanction: "The 
scientific spirit is the enemy of all instinct ; it tends to destroy the sense of 
obligation on which instinct is based. Every instinct disappears upon conscious- 
ness." — Tk ] 



DUTY AND CONSCIENCE 365 

order. Nor can the psychological effect of the view be 
indifference to custom. Not even when we have convinced 
ourselves of the falseness or absurdity of inherited or educa- 
tionally acquired elements of soul-life, do they cease to 
influence us. I should like to know how many of our most en- 
lightened natural-scientists are absolutely free from supersti- 
tious fear ; people who do not believe in ghosts in the day-time 
are plentiful, but how is it at night ? And here, in our case, 
we are not dealing with false or meaningless elements of pre- 
sentation and feeling, but with highly essential and important 
ones. Surely no one believes that a nation wholly devoid of 
what we call custom and conscience, in which the individual 
is governed in his actions by prudence and fear, could live a 
single day. Even the most enlightened philosopher is guided 
in his daily conduct, not by moral philosophy, but by impulses 
and feelings, by custom and conscience, by his love for the 
good, his aversion to the vulgar and bad. Chemistry is good 
and useful, but it does not make taste and smell superfluous ; 
we shall continue to employ these senses in discriminating 
substances ; indeed they often prove to be vastly superior to 
the re-agents of the chemists. And who would rather obtain 
his kitchen recipes frcm a chemistry of foods than trust the 
hereditary wisdom of the race concerning what is wholesome 
and palatable, which has been transmitted and increased from 
generation to generation ? It is the business of chemistry 
not so much to invent as to explain these subtle things ; 
which, of course, will not hinder it from giving us something 
better now and then. But if any one should decide to throw 
away appetite and hereditary wisdom, and trust himself 
solely to chemistry, we should regard him as rery foolish. It 
would be equally foolish for a man to discard conscience and 
custom, and to regulate his life solely by moral philosophy. 1 

1 " The painful feelings of shame or a bad conscience serve the practical 
ends of nature. They are the preventives, as it were, which hinder us from doing 
what is injurious to the totality of our organism, just as animals can distinguish 



366 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

But the transcendent sanction would surely disappear 1 — 
Here let me simply say that in my opinion the time will never 
come when men will cease to regard the morality and holi- 
ness which they have evolved from their innermost being as 
derived from the essence of God or the nature of the All-Real. 
How could these enter into the heart of man were they not 
rooted in the very nature of things ? Is man an anomaly in 
the universe ? Is he merely an accidental or external object 
in it ? — Are not he himself and his entire essence grounded in 
the All-Real ? The words of Hippocrates, with which Stein- 
thai prefaces his treatise on the Origin of Language, are 
applicable to every historical-psychological view of human 
affairs : All things are divine and all things are also human 
(irdvra Beta teal avOpcoTrtva iravra). 

Certain individuals may, no doubt, when enlightened as to 
the origin of conscience, come to believe that everything is 
right that can be done without danger of falling into the 
hands of the police. When a person who has been accus- 
tomed to look upon the moral laws as the arbitrary commands 
of an almighty being, who has declared his intention of pun- 
ishing all violations sooner or later, begins to doubt the exis- 
tence of such a being or to disbelieve in him altogether, he will 
necessarily conclude that these laws have no meaning. And 
I do not know how we can escape the conclusion if we accept 
the premises upon which it rests. Indeed, I know of no 
way of escaping it, except by showing that these laws are not 
the accidental injunctions of an arbitrary being, but that they 
are inherent in the nature of things, in the nature of man. 
So teleological ethics conceives them ; and conscience it con- 
ceives as the reflection of the objective uniformity of moral 
life in the consciousness of the individual. Hence it regards 



between wholesome and unwholesome food by means of their more finely devel- 
oped nerves of taste. Whenever an individual or a nation is deprived of the in- 
stinctive feelings of shame, dissolution follows." — Zollner, Ueber die Natur d«* 
Kometen, 3d edition, 1883, p. 4. 



DUTY AND CONSCIENCE 367 

conscience as a highly important organ for preserving life, as 
an organ which cannot be destroyed by speculations con- 
cerning its origin ; any more than the value of language can be 
impaired by abandoning the old superstitions which explained 
it as a direct communication from heaven. Or do the rules of 
grammar lose their validity, as soon as we become convinced 
that they originated in a human way ? Well, then, neither will 
the moral laws lose their validity. Whoever desires to parti- 
cipate in the intellectual life of his people must speak their 
language and obey their laws, whoever desires to participate 
in their moral life must follow their customs and obey the dic- 
tates of his conscience. And he must not merely do these things 
as though he could refrain from doing them if he chose : he must 
do them because the language of the people is his conscience, 
because he with his entire volitional and emotional nature is 
the product of the popular soul. — A representative of the age 
of Enlightenment, like Voltaire, who regards the u annihilation 
of infamous superstition " as the sole great object of science, 
might perhaps triumphantly exclaim, after having satisfied 
himself as to the falsity of the theological explanation of con- 
science : Hence, conscience is nothing, it is but a clever 
invention of unscrupulous priests to enslave the souls of men. 
The historical school, which starts from the hypothesis that 
everything has developed naturally, the evolutionistic anthro- 
pology of the nineteenth century, will view with surprise 
this outburst of joy : as though the falseness of the theory 
implied the falseness of the thing itself, as though the latter 
would have to stand and fall with the former ! Nay, it will 
be convinced on a priori grounds that an organ so universal as 
this, must perform a function essential to the preservation 
of life ; otherwise, how could \t have arisen ? And it will 
regard it as the business of science to show the importance of 
this organ for human life. 

But if science also has a practical function to perform here, 
it will by no means be to destroy, but to preserve and develop 



368 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

the organ. To destroy the conscience — and this may unques- 
tionably be done to a certain extent, not only by false 
methods of education, but by false theories, namely by the 
half-enlightenment resulting from a false theological ex- 
planation — is the most serious injury which can be done 
an individual or community. As Sidgwick admirably says : 
"For, though the imperfection that we find in all the actual 
conditions of human existence is ultimately found even in 
morality itself, still, practically, we are much less concerned 
with correcting and improving than we are with realizing 
and enforcing it. The Utilitarian must repudiate altogether 
that temper of rebellion against established morality, as 
something purely external and conventional, into which the 
reflective mind is always apt to fall when it is first convinced 
that its rules are not intrinsically reasonable. He must, of 
course, also repudiate as superstitious that awe of it as an 
absolute or Divine Code which intuitional moralists inculcate. 
Still, he will naturally contemplate it with reverence and 
wonder, as a marvellous product of nature, the result of 
long centuries of growth, showing in many parts the same fine 
adaptation of means to complex exigencies as the most elab- 
orate structures of physical organisms exhibit : he will handle 
it with respectful delicacy as a mechanism, constructed of 
the fluid element of opinions and dispositions ; by the indis- 
pensable aid of which the actual quantum of human happiness 
is continually being produced ; a mechanism which no politi- 
cians or philosophers could create, yet without which the 
harder and coarser machinery of positive law could not be 
permanently maintained, and the life of man would become 
— as Hobbes forcibly expresses it — 'solitary, poor, nasty, 
brutish, and short.' " * 

6. Individualization of Conscience. Conscience is originally 
the manifestation of custom or objective morality in the con- 
sciousness of the individual; it acts essentially as an in- 

1 Methods of Ethics, pp. 470 f. 



DUTY AND CONSCIENCE Sb'9 

hibition of particular will-impulses which deviate from the 
normal. But this is not its final and highest form. It exer- 
cises a more positive function in that it reflects an ideal 
of the perfect life. The elements of this ideal it first obtains 
from the objective morality of the people. In its religious 
and poetical creations every nation produces concrete images 
of perfection ; these take possession of the consciousness of 
the individual, and fashion his nature and will. He measures 
himself and his conduct by the ideal ; he is pained when he 
falls short of it, pleased when he approximates it. 

With the development of mental life, this life-ideal gradu- 
ally assumes a more specific and individualistic form. All 
historical evolution proceeds by differentiation. From the 
original unity of the human species, which we must presup- 
pose, the different types of races and nations have gradually 
been differentiated ; different religions and different customs 
express their mental individuality. As civilization advances 
still further the individuals also differentiate themselves 
from the mental life of the people, and lead separate mental 
existences. In the lower stages of civilization the different 
members of a people are wholly alike ; they have the same 
ideas, thoughts, opinions, habits, modes of conduct ; in short, 
their lives are filled with the same content, determined by 
their religion and customs. As the race develops, its life 
becomes richer and more varied, and at the same time 
greater differences appear among the individuals. The in- 
dividual begins to think his own thoughts ; he is no longer 
satisfied with the general conceptions of the world and life, 
offered by his religion and mythology ; he begins to philoso- 
phize. All philosophy begins with the emancipation of the 
individual from commonly accepted opinions. And in the 
same way, the individual's attitude to custom and to the opin- 
ion of his surroundings changes ; he begins to follow his own 
bent and to mould his own life's ideal. The sphere of free, 
individual action expands The richer and more varied the 



370 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

activities and relations of the individual become, the less 
able is custom to rule authoritatively ; the more personal the 
life of the individual and his relations to others become — 
for instance the relations existing between husband and wife, 
parents and children — the more difficult is it to subject them 
to rule, the more they call for special laws. 

Conscience thus acquires a new meaning : at first it 
measures the value of the individual life solely by custom ; 
now it measures the actual life by its special ideal. This 
individual ideal will exhibit the traits of the particular 
national life of which it is the product, it will not be 
unrelated to custom ; still it may differ widely from the 
universal conception and mode of life, so widely, indeed, that 
it may even bring the agent into conflict with custom, and 
that this conflict may not arouse pangs of conscience, but be 
recognized as a moral necessity. Objective morality is now 
opposed by a subjective morality, a higher form, which applies 
a new standard to things. 

Whenever the personality whose individual ideal brings it 
into antagonism with the objective morality of the times and 
leads to a recasting of moral values is endowed with remarkable 
powers of intellect and will, those conflicts arise which form 
the dramatic climaxes in history. The real heroes of man- 
kind have fought such battles. They rebel against the con- 
ventional values, against the ideals which have become useless 
and false, against sham and falsehood, against the salt that 
has lost its savor. They preach new truths, point out new 
aims and new ideals, which instil new life into the soul and 
raise it to a higher plane. Jesus fought this fight. He rose 
above the religion and the customs of his nation ; he conceived 
of a different and higher relation to God than that recognized 
by his people ; and hence he was not satisfied with the right- 
eousness of his people, with their punctilious and yet scant 
and self-sufficient fulfilment of the law. So he placed himself 
and his disciples outside of the law of his people ; he broke 



DUTY AND CONSCIENCE 371 

the Sabbath, he did not fast, and taught his disciples to follow 
his example ; he gave them instead a new commandment : 
" Love ye one another.'' And when the established system, the 
objective righteousness, protested against the revolt, he entered 
upon the struggle of annihilation which ended in his death. 
What sustained him in his battles and sufferings and led him 
to victory was his firm conviction that he had a special mis- 
sion to perform, that he was sent by the Father to proclaim 
the new kingdom of love and mercy. " My meat is to do the 
will of him that sent me." Thus Jesus has become the 
eternal prototype of all those who are thirsting after and 
battling for the kingdom of God, for truth and justice, of all 
those for whom life, as they find it, has too little force and 
spirituality, too little love and freedom, of all those who from 
the fulness of their hearts reveal their feelings and thoughts, 
and are then crucified and burned by the rabble, high and 
low. 1 

The counterparts of these highest heroic types of mankind 
are furnished by those monstrous criminals, of whom Plato, 

1 Such an individual conscience we find, remarkably developed, in the man 
who occupies such a peculiar position in the moral history of the Greek people, 
— Socrates. The Socratic dcemon is essentially nothing but Socrates's con- 
viction that he has a particular, individual purpose to realize, a mission to fulfil. 
As L. Schmidt admirably declares in his Etlrik der alten Griechen, I. 224 : 
"Natures with strongly marked individualities and clearly conscious purposes in 
life feel it as a moral necessity to abstain from that which is contrary to their 
individual dispositions : I cannot and must not, although other persons would, if 
they were in my place, be allowed to do it. The universal conscience, on the 
other hand, commands : I must not do it, nor would it be right for any one else 
in my place to do it." He adds an apt quotation from Vilmar : " It (the daemon) 
is nothing more nor less than what Goethe called the lines of fortification of his 
life, a gift peculiar to every noble and finely constructed soul : to know and to keep 
firmly in mind what one cannot do without exceeding and transcending one's 
capacities and powers. This gift is indeed closely related to conscience, not only 
because of its originally negative and prohibitive nature, but also because its 
dictates cannot be violated or even temporarily ignored without arousing a 
spiritual reaction similar to ethical remorse : whenever we occupy ourselves with 
things which (without having any great significance in themselves or being 
morally reprehensible) transcend our capacities or do not come up to our 
spiritual powers, we cannot suppress our dissatisfaction with ourselves, a feeling 
which almost amounts to aversion." 



372 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

for instance, gives us a poetical though apparently faithful 
picture in the tyrant of the Republic, or whom J. Burck- 
hardt describes with historical accuracy in his History of the 
Renaissance in Italy: those terrible characters, the Sforza 
and Borgia, who, fearing neither God nor man, accomplish 
their nefarious designs with superhuman efforts and absolute 
recklessness. 

Perhaps we may say that every one of these tremendous 
personalities has in him the making of a true hero as well as 
of a criminal tyrant. Goethe's Faust portrays the transforma- 
tion of one of these beings into the other. In the first part 
Faust appears as the titanic individual who has emancipated 
himself from the beliefs and customs of his people, and now 
seeks satisfaction for his desires : that which is allotted to 
the entire race he desires to enjoy in his own person, and 
then, like the race, to perish. He destroys the peace of a 
family, he sacrifices the happiness of an innocent and lovable 
girl to his lusts ; through him Gretchen murders her mother, 
her brother, and her child. He forsakes her, and joins the 
cavalcade which moves upon the Blochsberg. There is un- 
doubtedly something of Goethe's own nature in all this ; 
we find similar traits in the Prometheus poems. The second 
part of Faust aims to show how the "superhuman being" 
(JJbermenscK) again subjects himself to measure and law. 
The execution of this plan, however, falls far below the mark. 
Faust could have been purified and " saved " only by great 
sufferings, or by struggling zealously to attain some high end. 
His salvation by the " eternally feminine" is in truth a rather 
easy solution of the problem ; nor are we satisfied with the 
curious hydraulic enterprises of the old man. It is true, 
Goethe's own life was free from great sufferings and great 
struggles, and he was either too honest or too subjective to 
introduce into his poem anything that did not form a part 
of his own experiences. 

The two types, however, which outwardly resemble each 



DUTY AND CONSCIENCE 873 

other in ignoring custom and law, differ in their inner rela- 
tions to customs and the people. The tyrant despises and 
breaks the moral laws in order to give full play to his de- 
sires ; he wishes to enjoy and to rule. Jesus announces as 
his mission not the destruction of the " law " but its fulfil- 
ment ; his object is to give it a higher content than the pro- 
fessional interpreters can give it. He knows what his fate will 
be, he does not anticipate splendor and power, but humiliation 
and death. " The son of man came not to be ministered 
unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." 
7. Moral nihilism. The distinguishing mark of moral 
nihilism in concrete, individual cases is a complete absence 
of conscience both in the form of the consciousness of duty 
as well as of a life ideal. As a theory or argument it denies 
the validity of all rules of duty or moral laws. It declares : 
Duty is an empty word ; life is a struggle for existence, and 
in the struggle for existence all means are permissible. Mur- 
der, falsehood, violence, are good provided they are success- 
ful ; they are merely decried as bad by weaklings and gre- 
garious beings, because these are made to suffer by them. 
Or : Justice and law and religion were invented by despots to 
enslave the minds of the oppressed; the enlightened man 
knows that nothing binds him. And just as there are no 
duties towards others, there can be no duties towards self. 
So-called ideals are soap-bubbles to delight children, or in- 
tended by clever people to delude the fools. Goodness con- 
sists in doing and boldly carrying out what our momentary 
desires demand. Some one has quoted as the motto of an 
aristocratic Russian : Je ne crois rien, je ne crains rien, je 
rfaime rien ; or, Nothing binds me, neither morals nor duty, 
neither fear nor hope, neither love nor ideals ; the free sover- 
eign individual lives in the moment, regardless of the future 
as well as the past. 1 

1 [See the Greek Sophists ; Plato's Gorgias, 481 ff . ; Stirner, Der Einzige und 
sein Eiyenthum, 1845, 2d. ed., 1882; Nietzsche (pp. 150 ff. supra); Steine^, 



374 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

Is it possible to refute nihilism ; can we prove to any one 
who reasons thus that he is in the wrong ? I do not believe 
it. We can tell and show him that others feel differently, but 
he will answer : What do I care ? You may find feelings of 
duty and ideals in yourselves ; in me there is nothing of the 
kind, and I do not regret it either. If we say to him : 
That is a defect; a human being capable only of momen- 
tary pleasures is a contemptible creature, he will reply : 
I do not agree with you ; on the contrary, he is contemptible 
who has not the courage to do what he pleases, but lets all 
kinds of imaginary scruples defraud him of the pleasures of 
the moment. — This position may be logically maintained. 
We cannot force the nihilist to confess its falseness ; this we 
could do only in case there were some point of agreement 
between us, a common regard for that which gives life its 
value. Without this all reasonings are vain, nay, perhaps 
evil, because they simply confirm the nihilist, who is in love 
with his opinions and his own astuteness, in his error. The 
feeling that he cannot be refuted will simply intensify his con- 
viction that he is in the right. Aristotle did not regard the 
following hint as superfluous : " It is not necessary to exam- 
ine every problem or every assertion, but only such about 
which some one is really in doubt who needs instruction and 
not punishment or sharpened wits ;" — a truth of which the 
age of paradoxes in which we live also needs to be reminded. 1 

It is quite a different question, however, whether nihilism, 
which cannot be refuted logically, can be consistently applied 
in practice, and whether any man really feels that only the 
satisfaction of momentary desires has worth. Perhaps he 

Philosophie der Freiheit, 1894. Compare Kreibig, Geschichte und Kritilc des 
ethischen Scepticismus, 1896; Nordau, Degeneration, yol. II. See also Turgenev's 
novels, New ; Fathers and Sons (English translations by Mrs. C. Garnett). — Tr.] 
1 Aristotle, Topics, I., 11: ov 5e? nav irp6/3\r}iJ.a ovSe itaaav Occriy iiricrKOirslv, 
&\\' *r\v &irop-f)(T*L€j' &v ris twv \6yov deo/j.evai', Kal fi^f KoAdcews $ alffO-fiaeoos * ol 
fiev yap airopovvres, iroTtpov 5e? tovs deobs TyiS? % ov, KoAacrews d4ovrai, ol 8i, ir^ 
repay r\ xiwv Xcvk)} ^ ov, alcrdJifftots. 



DUTY AND CONSCIENCE 375 

believes it, but is mistaken about himself and his own will. 
Perhaps it will be possible to change him by appealing from 
his understanding to his will : You really do not mean what 
you say *, in you, too, the impulse of self-preservation exists, 
as more than a desire to satisfy your momentary cravings ; 
in you, too, there is something of an impulse of ideal self- 
preservation ; it manifests itself when you combat and despise 
whatever you regard as falsehood and sham. The epitaph 
of Sardanapalus or of the Count Zaehdarm (in Carlyle's 
Sartor Hesartus') would not wholly suit you after all. You 
are not so indifferent to the welfare of others as you yourself 
say and imagine. Nay, perhaps your belief that customs and 
the feeling of duty have no influence over you is a delusion. 
You may really be convinced of it for the time being ; under 
suitable circumstances you would perhaps discover to your 
surprise that you still have a conscience. I cannot prove this 
to you ; I cannot force the " ought " into you by means of 
arguments ; but perhaps it is in you without your knowing it. 1 

1 In Dostoievsky's novel (RaskolniJcow, Eng. title, Crime and Punishment), which 
is of unusual interest to moralists and psychologists, moral nihilism forms the cen- 
tral theme. The hero of the novel is a student, whom all kinds of unhappy condi- 
tions have made miserable and tired of life. In this frame of mind he develops 
the disease of moral nihilism : All moral judgments and feelings which educat- 
ion has implanted in him now seem to him ridiculous, childish prejudices, 
contemptible weakness, to emancipate oneself from which is the mark of a free 
and strong mind. Encouraged by such reflections, he kills an old repulsive 
usuress, in order to obtain money, but at the same time also to test his theory : 
" I wanted to know," he afterwards says in discussing the matter, " whether I 
was, like all of them, merely vermin, or a man, whether I was able to break through 
the barriers or not, whether I would really dare to stoop to gain power or not, 
whether I wae merely a trembling creature, or whether I had a right — .'' The 
reaction of human feeling and conscience against these nihilistic sentiments 
and reflections before and after the deed is described with thrilling truthfulness. 
He finds it impossible to turn his thoughts from the crime ; it is ever before his 
mind, in his waking and in his dreaming, when he is alone and with others. As a 
kind of counterpart to this novel, let me call the reader's attention to an admir- 
able story of country life by Anzengruber, Der Sternsteinhof. The heroine of the 
narrative is a poor girl, full of natural vitality and a strong desire to assert her- 
self. She encounters many moral dangers, and even commits crime, and passing 
over more than one broken heart makes straight for her goal, which is, to 
become the peasant mistress of the Sternsteinhof. She is not troubled much with 



376 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

It is just as impossible to force the nihilist by argument to 
abandon his position as it is logically to refute a man who 
denies the existence of the sun in the heavens. But this does 
not mean that nihilism is a valid theory. We cannot prove to 
the fever-patient that he sees only hallucinations, or to the 
madman that his fixed ideas are crazy notions. That does not 
prevent the former from being sick or the latter from being 
crazy. An anthropologist, a biological observer of the genus 
homo — let us assume, in order to insure his perfect impartial- 
ity, that he has descended from Saturn to the earth, as in 
Voltaire's Mikr omegas — would soon convince himself that a 
man really living according to the principles of moral nihilism 
was abnormal. He would say : He lacks an organ which is 
usually present, namely, conscience. And he would add : It 
seems to be an organ of some importance, for individuals 
in whom it is lacking invariably perish. And if he were to 
investigate more closely, he would perhaps find that, as a rule, 
such abnormal natures at the same time exhibit dangerous 
perversions of impulse; alcoholism and perverse sexual de- 
sires, which are often hereditary, are the usual concomitants 
or the causes of such perverse feelings and volitions. The 
usual consequences of the disease, however, he might say, are 
disgust with life, and suicide. 1 Only in case the abnormal 

moral reflections ; and pangs of conscience affect her only for a moment. The 
law of her being proves to be stronger than the moral law : it ignores her own 
conscience and the opinion of her surroundings. As soon as she reaches her 
goal and establishes herself in the place for which nature intended her, she 
labors freely and ably, without worrying much about the past. 

1 Some psychiatrists regard " moral insanity " as a peculiar form of disease, 
tt is characterized by a complete lack of conscience. Krafft-Ebing (Lehrbuch 
der Psychiatrie, II., 65) describes the disease "as complete moral insensibility. 
Moral notions and judgments are apprehended by the understanding and the 
memory, but they have absolutely no feeling-accompaniments, and are therefore 
wholly incapable of moving the will. "Without interest in anything that is 
noble and beautiful, dead to all feeling, these unfortunate malformations show 
a woeful lack of filial and domestic love, of all social instincts, indifference to the 
weal and woe of their surroundings. They are utterly insensible to the moral 
approval or disapproval of their fellows, wholly devoid of feelings of conscience 
and remorse. They do not know what morality means ; the law they look upon 



DUTY AND CONSCIENCE 377 

feelings are not the result of organic conditions, but of intel- 
lectual error, of half-truths, can the diagnosis be more favor- 
able. Here a more thorough knowledge, based upon wider 
experience, new problems of life, and advancing age may lead 
to the removal of the erroneous views and consequently to a 
change of feeling and volition. 

8. In conclusion, let me answer a few questions suggested 
by the notion of duty. What do we mean by meritorious con- 
duct ? Can a man do more than his duty ? What is allowable ? 
Are there acts which duty neither enjoins nor prohibits — that 
is, indifferent acts ? Are there duties towards self ? 

Such and similar questions deal with difficulties which arise 
more from the ambiguities of language than from the nature of 
the subject itself. They may be easily answered by a more 
careful definition of the terms. 

Duty in the narrowest sense means the performance of acts 
or the abstention from acts in which others have a legal inter- 
est. It is your duty to pay your debts, to keep your contracts, 
not to steal or defraud. On the other hand, it is not a duty in 
this sense to do a man a favor, to help him when in trouble. 
The former is an obligation, the latter a purely voluntary 
affair. — According to this meaning of the term, there can, 
of course, be no duties toward self. 

merely as a police regulation, and the most heinous crime they view about as 
an ethically sound person would regard the violation of a police ordinance. This 
defect renders such inferior beings incapable of living permanently in society and 
makes them fit candidates for the workhouse, insane asylum, or penitentiary. — 
Besides this lack of ethical, altruistic feelings, they manifest formal affective 
derangement, great emotional irritability, which in conjunction with the absence 
of moral feelings impels them to acts of great brutality and cruelty." On the 
other hand, these patients seem to be unaffected intellectually, if we regard formal 
logical thought, prudence, action according to plan, as decisive. Hallucinations 
and illusions are absent. Still, intellectual degeneracy is never entirely lacking. 
" Not only are they ignorant of what is immoral, but they do not even know what 
is detrimental to their interests. In spite of all evidence of shrewdness they often 
surprise us by their total disregard of the simplest rules of prudence in their 
criminal acts. On the formal side, we must especially emphasize the defective 
way in which they reproduce ideas." Finally, perverse impulses are common in 
tiie organic and particularly in the sexual sphere. 



378 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

Duty in a wider sense means conduct in accordance with 
the demands of custom, or the laws of morality. According 
to this interpretation of the term, it would, undoubtedly, be 
a violation of our duty to humanity to refuse to answer a 
stranger's polite question concerning the road to take: the 
duty of love of neighbor enjoins kindness. On the other 
hand, duty does not demand that I save another's life at the 
risk of my own : whoever does this performs a meritorious act, 
but whoever refrains from doing it violates no duty. Heroism 
and holiness are not duties. In this sense we also speak of 
duties to self. It is a duty to develop our own capacities ; 
it is a violation of duty for one to ruin his health by acts 
of imprudence, to waste his mental powers in idleness and 
dissipation. But here, too, there is a limit to the requirements 
of duty, and here, too, we have heroism which does more than 
is demanded, which is meritorious. — Hence merit consists in 
doing more than average virtue requires. This likewise de- 
termines the concept of the allowable. It is allowable to take 
recreation, although we have plenty of work to do and the 
power to do it ; it is allowable to seek enjoyment, although 
there are others whom we might help by denying ourselves. 
In a word, it is allowable to remain within the limits of 
average virtue. 

The word duty, finally, is also used in a widest, fullest 
sense, in which both the notion of merit and the notion of the 
allowable have no meaning. Christianity commands its dis- 
ciples : " Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which 
is in heaven is perfect." In the face of this imperative there 
can, of course, be no excess in virtue ; hence there can be no 
merit before God. Whoever has kept the commandments, 
let him say : I have done my duty ; or, as the saint prefers to 
say, since human beings do not achieve this goal: I am an 
unworthy servant. 



CHAPTER VI 

EGOISM AND ALTRUISM » 

1. Acts are called egoistic when their motive is individual 
weal or woe, altruistic when their motive is the weal and woe 
of others. Some moralists regard these motives as mutually 
exclusive. Every act is the product of either egoistic or 
altruistic motives, and is therefore either egoistic or altru- 
istic. This view gives rise to two opposing schools. Pure 
altruism sets up the principle : Acts have moral worth only in 
so far as they are determined by purely altruistic motives. 
Pure egoism asserts : It is not only allowable, but morally 
necessary to make individual welfare the sole end of action. 

A. Comte, who coined the term, inclines to altruism. 
Schopenhauer advocates the theory in its extremest form. 
Every act, he argues, has a motive ; only weal or woe can be 
a motive ; the weal or the woe is either that of the agent him- 
self or that of another. Only in the latter case, does an act 
possess moral worth ; this depends solely upon " whether the 
act is committed or omitted for the good of another. When- 
ever this is not the case, the weal or woe impelling or hinder- 
ing the performance of each act can only be that of the agent 
himself ; then the act is invariably egoistic, and hence without 
moral worth." It becomes bad when the welfare of self is 

1 [See the ethical works of Bacon, Cumberland, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, But- 
ler, Hume, A. Smith, J. S. Mill, Bain, Darwin, Sidgwick ; Spencer, Data of Ethics, 
chaps. XI.-XIV. ; Stephen, Science of Ethics, chap. VI. ; Simmel, Einhitunq, 
chap. II. ; Mackenzie, Manual, chap. IX., also p. 322 ; Williams, Evol. Ethics, 
Part II., chap. V. ; Hoff ding, Ethik, VIII. ; Harris, Moral Evolution ; Drum 
mond, Ascent of Man. — See also James's Psychology, vol. I., chap. X. — Tr.] 



880 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

sought at the expense of others' welfare. 1 Popular usage 
seems to favor this view ; the adjective selfish implies blame, 
while the adjective unselfish implies moral approval. 2 

The absolute altruism of Schopenhauer and his disciples is 
opposed by its direct contrary, absolute egoism. This is not 
so common, and appears in the form of a paradox. Nietzsche 
approximates it: it is the reaction against Schopenhauer's 
altruism. Besides, there is a tendency to absolute egoism in 
Schopenhauer himself ; his contempt for the masses and 
humanity, and the high estimate which he places upon genius, 
suggest it. If humanity has worth, solely because of the few 
geniuses it produces, then it is right that the masses be 
regarded and employed by them as means ; an absolute aris- 
tocratic-egoistic morality would be the consequence. But a 
democratic-egoistic form of morality is equally conceivable. 
The individualistic utilitarianism of Hobbes 3 and Spinoza 
approximates it: Everybody strives exclusively for his own 
self-preservation, that is the order of nature, but likewise 
the moral order. When a man solely pursues his own real 
good, he does right, that is all that morality demands. More- 
over, he, at the same time, does the best he can for others ; 
by a kind of pre-established harmony the true interests of all 
individuals coincide. 4 

Indeed, the standpoint of absolute egoism is logically ten- 
able ; we can imagine a society in which every one acts accord- 

1 Grundlage der Moral, § 16. 

2 [Cf . Fichte, Characteristics of the Present Age, § 70 : " There is but one virtue, 
and that is to forget oneself as a person ; but one vice : to think of oneself. Who- 
ever in the slightest degree thinks of his own personality, and desires a life and 
being and any self-enjoyment whatever, except for the race, is fundamentally 
and radically ... a low, petty, wicked, and wretched fellow." — Tr.] 

8 [Leviathan ; On Liberty and Necessity.'] 

4 [Egoists : Mandeville, Enquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue ; Fable of the 
Bees ; La Rochefoucauld, R€flexions y 1665 ; La Bruyere, Les caracteres et les moeurs 
de ce siecle, 1687 ; Lamettrie, L'homme machine, 1748 ; Helvetius, De Vesprit, 1758; 
Holbach, Systeme de la nature, 1770; Paley, Moral Philosophy ; Bentham, Prin- 
ciples of Morals and Legislation. Hartley and the associationists derive the sym< 
pathetic feelings from egoism. See also Jhering, vol. II. — Tr.] 



EGOISM AND ALTRUISM 381 

ing to the maxim of pure egoism, whereas a society in which 
every one uniformly acts according to the maxim of pure 
altruism is not even conceivable. In so far as the economic 
world is based upon contract and commerce, it approxi- 
mately realizes the principle of egoism ; we have here a plu- 
rality of individuals, each of whom has in view only his own 
interests, and yet a certain harmony of the interests of all. 
If, on the other hand, we make pure altruism the leading 
principle, every man caring only for the interests of others 
and never for his own, we evidently bring about such an 
absurd exchange of interests as to make collective life incon- 
ceivable. — Neverthless, pure egoism, too, is practically just 
as impossible as pure altruism. A society based solely upon 
egoism is conceivable, but psychologically impossible. Even 
in economic affairs, other motives, besides calculating self- 
interest, play a part, e. g., emotional influences of all kinds, a 
sense of what is proper and improper, a regard for the con- 
dition of others, the inhibition of egoistic impulses by shame 
and conscience. And it is really doubtful whether the com- 
plete elimination of these motives could be borne, whether 
we could always choose with sufficient accuracy between our 
true interests and our apparent interests, whether a temporary 
advantage would not often defeat a real advantage, and whether 
the war of all against all would not put an end to the life of 
society. Still less possible would be the more personal rela- 
tions, such as those existing between husband and wife, or par- 
ents and children, without their natural foundation, the 
sympathetic feelings. We may, perhaps, conceive of a mother 
who cares for and educates her children solely from selfish 
considerations ; but nobody will regard her as psychologically 
possible, unless, of course, he includes the welfare of the child 
m the selfish interests of the mother, in which case the dis- 
pute is merely a verbal one. For we called the feeling for the 
weal and woe of other individuals altruistic or sympathetic 
feeling as distinguished from egoistic or idiopathic feeling. 



382 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

But if I insist that the sympathetic feeling, too, is my feel- 
ing and consequently an egoistic motive, there can, of course, 
be no other motives than egoistic motives. I can be deter- 
mined to action only by my motives and feelings, not by those 
of another. Still, this does not obliterate the distinction ; we 
should then have directly egoistic and indirectly egoistic 
impulses; the latter, however, would be the same as those 
usually called sympathetic or altruistic. And we should have 
to say that without these sympathetic-altruistic motives, a 
human life would be just as impossible as without the egoistic 
ones. Both together are needed to make the life of the in- 
dividual and the life of the whole possible. 

Both of these false moral principles, pure altruism and pure 
egoism, are ultimately based upon a false anthropology. They 
presuppose with the old system of rationalistic individualism, 
that every individual is an absolutely independent being, and 
comes in contact with other beings only occasionally and acci- 
dentally. In these relations, for which we can keep separate 
accounts, he is either egoistic or altruistic. In the latter case, 
altruism says his conduct is moral, at other times it is indiffer- 
ent or bad, whereas, egoism demands that he seek his own 
advantage even in his occasional dealings with others. Both 
theories are founded upon a view like the one advanced by 
Jeremy Bentham at the beginning of his Principles of Morals 
and Legislation : " A community is a fictitious body, composed 
of individual persons who are considered as constituting, as it 
were, its members." This conception has been abandoned 
since the eighteenth century, at least in Germany ; a people 
is not & fictitious body, of which the individuals are the ficti- 
tious members, but a unified being to which the individuals 
bear the same relation as organs to a body. Just as the 
organs are produced by the whole and exist in it alone, so 
the individuals are produced by the people and live and move 
in it alone ; they function as its organs, they speak its lan- 
guage, they think its thoughts, they are interested in its wel- 



EGOISM AND ALTRUISM 383 

fare, they desire its life ; they propagate and rear offspring, 
and so perpetuate the race. And this objective relation 
of the individual to the whole manifests itself subjectively 
in his volitional and emotional life. Everywhere the circles of 
the ego and the non-ego intersect. This fact is universally 
accepted ; only in moral philosophy we still find persons 
who do not see it, who insist on regarding the antithesis 
between altruism and egoism as an absolute one. I should 
like to show how little the facts agree with this view ; in our 
actual life and practice there is no such isolation of in- 
dividuals ; the motives and effects of action are constantly 
intersecting the boundaries of egoism and altruism. 

2. Let me first prove it for the effects. There is no act 
that does not influence the life of the individual as well as 
that of the surroundings, and hence cannot and must not be 
viewed and judged from the standpoint of both individual 
and general welfare. The traditional classification, which 
distinguishes between duties towards self and duties towards 
others, cannot be recognized as a legitimate division. There 
is no duty towards individual life that cannot be construed 
as a duty towards others, and no duty towards others that 
cannot be proved to be a duty towards self. 

Care of one's own health appears at first sight to be purely 
selfish. Reflection, however, will clearly show that the pos- 
sessor of good health is by no means the only interested 
party. Every disturbance and its consequences spread from 
the seat of its origin to the surroundings. The ill-humor 
which results from an improper mode of life or a neglect of 
self, is not confined to the guilty person ; he is cross and 
irritable, and his moodiness and moroseness are a source of 
annoyance to the entire household. In case of serious sick- 
ness, the family becomes uneasy and anxious, and perhaps 
suffers materially from a diminished income and an increase of 
expenditures. When the patient is an official, his colleagues 
are made to suffer ; they have to do his work ; if he has 



384 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

absolutely ruined his health, he becomes a pensioner, and so 
increases the public burdens. Conversely, whoever cares for 
his health perhaps does his surroundings the greatest service 
which he can do them ; hence we may say, with Spinoza : 
Conatus sese conservandi primum et unicum virtutis est fun- 
damentum. Indeed, with only a little more rational self-love, 
the largest portion of human misery would disappear. Take 
away drunkenness and dissipation, and nine-tenths of the 
wretchedness would be gone. — It is the same in the economic 
sphere. To acquire wealth seems to be the central purpose 
of our egoistic strivings. But industry, energy, and frugality 
may, with equal right, be denned as duties towards others. 
The beneficent effects make themselves directly felt in the 
family, and in the education of the younger generation. But 
the community, too, and finally the nation, nay, even the 
entire economic world, have an interest in them. The welfare 
of a community, or a nation, consists in the welfare of the 
particular families. Conversely, the vagrant, the spendthrift, 
injures first himself, then his family, perhaps to remote gen- 
erations — for shiftlessness and mendicancy are hereditary as 
well as bodily defects — and at last, the entire nation, either 
by becoming a burden upon public charity, or by helping to 
turn production into false channels and by destroying mor- 
ality with his bad example. 

So we may say in general : All qualities and acts which 
promote or disturb the healthy development of individual life, 
at the same time tend to have beneficial or injurious effects 
upon the development of collective life. Or, as Spinoza puts 
it : Quum rnaxime unusquisque suunt sibi utile quaerit, turn 
maxime homines sunt sibi in vicem utiles. 

But the converse is likewise true : Social virtues tend to 
have a good effect upon individual welfare, whereas their ab- 
sence is detrimental to individual life. 

The family is the most important sphere for the develop- 
ment of social virtues ; for the large majority of men the 



EGOISM AND ALTRUISM 385 

most serious duties towards others are embraced in this circle. 
It requires no argument to show that all acts and qual- 
ities which promote the welfare of the family have beneficial 
effects upon the individual. The surest and greatest source 
of happiness to parents, nay, almost the only one in their old 
age, is the good training which they have given their children ; 
hardly any other neglect of duty is followed by such certain 
and painful penalties as improper training. We are accus- 
tomed to regard honesty in economic life as a duty to others. 
It is no less a duty of the individual towards himself. Many 
proverbs express the experience of the race on this point : 
Honesty is the best policy ; Ill-gotten goods seldom prosper ; 
The biter is sometimes bit ; 111 got, ill spent. We cannot 
adduce a statistical proof for the truth of these observations, 
but a psychological proof is not hard to find. Dishonesty 
deadens the desire for honest acquisition ; and theft is always 
an uncertain and precarious means of livelihood. What we 
have honestly acquired is productive of blessings ; stolen 
goods have the opposite effect. And if all this were not true, 
if it were possible to enjoy the fruits of theft permanently and 
in safety who is proof against his own conscience? Every 
man shares the sentiments and judgments of society; they 
may be temporarily obscured, but no one can be sure that 
they will not manifest themselves again some day ; no one 
has ever done well to burden himself with a black secret. — A 
modest, open, peaceable demeanor we regard as a duty to- 
wards others. There is no surer way of making one's own 
life happy. It wins friends for one, it creates an atmosphere 
of peace and good cheer in the surroundings, which is reflected 
back to its source. And vice versa, a haughty, envious, 
quarrelsome, deceitful, malicious nature is a certain means 
to an unhappy, sorrowful life. 

Hence duties towards others and duties towards self do not 
exclude each other ; individual welfare and the welfare of the 
collective bodies of which every one forms a part — the family, 

25 



386 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

the social and economic sphere, the community, the state — are 
so interwoven that whoever cares for his own true welfare at 
the same time promotes that of these bodies ; and vice versa, 
whoever faithfully performs the duties which are imposed by 
them works for his own good. 

3. It is as impossible to distinguish absolutely between 
egoistic and altruistic acts on the ground of their motives as 
it is to separate them according to their effects. Indeed, it is 
a somewhat curious notion, this notion that every act must 
have one motive. Nay, just as many causes co-operate in the 
physical world to produce a movement, so many motives work 
together to determine the will. As a rule, a particular act 
results from the interaction of a permanent tendency of the 
will, which in turn depends upon the agent's nature and life- 
conditions, and the surrounding circumstances. Altruistic 
motives have invariably contributed to educate the will, 
while among the conditions referred to we may often reckon 
the entreaties, commands, exhortations, admonitions, praise 
and censure of persons who exert an influence either directly, 
in word, or by their mere existence, even without being 
actually present. Is it an egoistic or an altruistic motive 
that impels the peasant to cultivate his fields, to improve his 
land, to work industriously year after year, and day after day ? 
This is an absurd alternative. If the peasant himself were 
asked whether he did all these things for his own or others' 
sake, he would look at the questioner in a perplexed way, as 
though doubting his sanity, and if he answered at all, he 
would say : I do them because they must be done ; otherwise 
my property will go to rack and ruin. And why should n't it 
go to ruin ? Well, it would be a shame to ruin it. Besides, it 
gives me and my family a living. — And if the moralist were 
to investigate more closely, he would perhaps find that this 
same peasant was laboring zealously for his community, that 
he was rearing sons for his country and furnishing the army 
with soldiers, and that he really desired to do all these things, 



EGOISM AND ALTRUISM 387 

and that he could not do them without working as he does. 
He is not working, say a little for himself and a little for 
others, but for both at the same time. His action is deter- 
mined by all his conscious and unconscious purposes taken 
together, and there are no separate accounts in his bookkeep- 
ing, for himself, for his family, and for the community. 
Such exact calculations are, like the balance of pleasure, to 
be found only in the works of moral theorists whose hair- 
splittings hinder them from seeing the facts. 

Is the case different with the artist, scholar, or statesman ? 
Perhaps he will be told upon his seventieth anniversary, or 
upon some other occasion, that he has lived and worked 
solely for the welfare of the people or the cause of humanity. 
Now and then a man may be found who will give himself 
such a character as Christian Wolff gave himself in one 
of his prefaces, where he states that he had always felt a 
great love for the human race and had composed all his works 
for its benefit. I do not like to question old Wolff's veracity, 
but I am rather inclined to doubt his statement. Did he 
really first decide to benefit the human race, did he then 
deliberate how to serve humanity, and, after finding that 
nothing could be more useful than " rational thoughts," begin 
to write his books ? Hardly ; I imagine that he first felt 
impelled to think about things in order to clarify his own 
thoughts; that after he had succeeded in doing this to his 
own satisfaction, he could not rest until he had written out a 
clear and elaborate account of his views ; that he occasionally 
considered with satisfaction how lucidly they were expressed, 
how his readers would praise his work, in what glowing 
terms the learned journals would speak of it, how chagrined 
his opponents would be at the telling arguments against them ; 
that, now and then, he may have thought of humanity and of 
the value of knowledge for the world and of the advance- 
ment of truth by means of his labors. And the worth of these 
books will not be diminished by the fact that they were made 



388 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

in a perfectly human way. On the contrary, the value of 
works composed " for others " is perhaps much more doubtful 
than the value of those whose authors were interested solely 
in the subject itself, and perhaps occasionally thought of their 
fame. Schopenhauer was not in the habit of worrying much 
about the weal and woe of others ; what he thought and wrote 
he wrote for his own sake, in order to solve the great riddle of 
existence, in order to preserve the thoughts which pleased 
him, in the happy moment of their birth, and to create for 
himself happy surroundings in them. He did not write for 
others ; he wrote no text-books, no systems, no learned works, 
but he wrote for himself just as the true poet writes poetry 
for himself, and the true artist creates for himself and gives 
expression to what his soul conceives. Of course, if there 
were no "others," nothing would be created. No orator 
would speak without an audience to hear him, no poet make 
poetry without a people to read or sing his songs, no author 
write unless there were, at least in his imagination, persons 
who would read what he wrote. Nevertheless, if a man is not 
so full of his subject that he cannot help speaking of it, if he 
must first be impelled to do so by his consideration of others 
and their good, he may save his efforts without endangering the 
welfare of others. Hoffding quotes a remark of Goethe to 
Eckermann : " I never asked myself in my profession as a lit- 
erary man : What do the masses want, and how can I serve 
humanity ? But I always simply endeavored to make myself 
wiser and better, to enrich my own personality, and then 
always to say only what I had found to be good and true." 

And the same may be said of genuine self-sacrifice also. 
Was the motive which actuated Leonidas and his band, egois- 
tic or altruistic ? The question is absurd and tries to separate 
what cannot be separated. Certainly, they battled for their 
country ; but of course, the country was their country and not 
a foreign country. On the other hand, they fought and fell for 
their own glory, but their glory was likewise the glory of Sparta* 



EGOISM AND ALTRUISM 389 

How would it be possible to distinguish between the personal 
and the altruistic element here ? Hence, we may say : Every 
self-sacrifice is at the same time self-preservation, namely 
preservation of the ideal self ; indeed, it is the proudest kind 
of self-assertion for me to sacrifice myself, for me to stake my 
life, in battling for a good which I esteem higher than my life. 
A purely passive sacrifice would not be my act, and hence not 
self-sacrifice. There is therefore always a " selfish " element 
in it ; " unselfish " conduct is a contradiction in terms. The 
self is always involved, it sacrifices a good only for a higher 
good, possessions for fame, a good name for a good conscience, 
life for the freedom and honor of the people. And vice versa, 
the traitor sacrifices his friend or his reputation or his people 
for thirty pieces of silver ; he, too, would rather have the 
thirty pieces of silver without the sacrifice. The only differ- 
ence lies in the evaluation of the goods ; and this is what de- 
termines the value of the man : he expresses his own worth, 
his innermost disposition, in the values which he places upon 
the goods. 

Physicists claim that there is no isolated point in the uni- 
verse, that every element of the corporeal world stands in 
reciprocal relation with every other one. There is no isolated 
point in the moral world either. Every act of every man in- 
fluences the entire moral universe, and every act in the universe 
reacts upon every individual. We cannot trace these effects 
and show what they are, nor can we do this in the physical 
world : the fall of a stone does not change the earth's centre 
of gravity to any perceptible degree, but it changes it none 
the less. Similarly, an individual's liking for or aversion to 
coffee or tobacco does not noticeably affect the market value 
of these commodities, yet it changes it, and thereby influences 
agriculture and the economic activity of mankind. The indi- 
vidual's like or dislike for a mode of conduct, a form of art, 
a thought, or a word, does not perceptibly change, but still it 
changes, the morals, the art, the opinions, and the language 



390 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

of his surroundings, his people, and humanity. That there is 
such an inter-relation between all is seen from the fact that 
no one is wholly indifferent to the behavior of others : he 
approves or disapproves others' conduct as soon as he wit- 
nesses it, and every judgment is the beginning of some form of 
interference, which furthers or retards such action. It seems 
as though every one felt : Whatever my fellowman does con- 
cerns me, it promotes or opposes my ultimate ends. 

Is the antithesis between egoism and altruism therefore 
meaningless ? Is there no difference in acts and motives, 
which gives rise to this division ? 

I do not, of course, claim that. Cases unquestionably arise, 
in which individual interests conflict, or seem to conflict, with 
foreign interests. Acts doubtless occur in which the individ- 
ual seeks his own advantage at the expense of others' welfare, 
and conversely, there are acts in which individual interests and 
inclinations are sacrificed for the welfare of others ; from which 
it does not necessarily follow that individual welfare, if we take 
the word in its profoundest meaning, is promoted in the former 
instance and retarded in the latter. And it cannot be disputed 
that these facts have great moral significance. The above re- 
flections simply desire to show that the opposition between in- 
dividual and general welfare, selfish and altruistic motives, is 
not the rule, but the exception. As a rule, there is harmony 
in the effects as well as in the motives. Life is not such an 
antagonistic affair as some moralists make it appear : it is 
not one constant struggle between mine and thine. No hu- 
man life, perhaps, is wholly free from conflict, but there are 
many lives in which it plays no prominent part. Persons who 
enjoy healthy domestic relations and live in well-regulated 
communities, and pursue honorable and regular callings, do 
not experience many such conflicts, nor do they by any means 
believe that the altruistic settlement of such conflicts forms 
the essential content of their life, and determines its moral 
worth. 



EGOISM AND ALTRUISM 391 

4. And how are such cases to be judged morally ? Is the 
sacrifice of individual interests for those of others always 
a duty, or, if not a real duty, at least praiseworthy and good ? 
Schopenhauer believes that it is, and popular usage seems 
to confirm his view : language, which has created the words 
kindness and malice, self-interest and selfishness, suggests it. 
The matter does not seem so simple upon closer analysis. It 
has been observed, in the first place, that not every act which 
springs from the impulse to do good to others, is really benefi- 
cent ; the altruistic intention does not guarantee a beneficent 
effect. There are many forms of " beneficence " which pro- 
duce evil ; indeed, there are many people who are so infinitely 
" good " that no one is benefited thereby, and every one who 
comes under their influence is spoiled. Kindness ( Gute) with- 
out wisdom is not good but pernicious, as pernicious as any 
undisciplined natural impulse. In his Timon Shakespeare 
has portrayed with cruel fidelity the effects of kindness that 
is not governed by reason. Consequently, the mere fact that 
desires are altruistically inclined, by no means makes them 
morally good, much less the only moral good. 

Moreover, can we grant that the sacrifice of personal in- 
terests, even when it really promotes the welfare of others, is 
invariably meritorious and praiseworthy, or even a duty ? I 
do not believe it. Ought I, in order to give others a little 
pleasure, to ignore my own important and essential interests ? 
Ought I to sacrifice my possessions, health, and life in order 
to fulfil a sick man's harmless whims, and to lighten his lot ? 
Is that my duty, or, if not my duty, always meritorious or praise- 
worthy ? Ought I to look upon the promotion of my family's 
welfare as selfish ? Ought I to deny to my brother, or to my 
child, that which would prove of great value to him, but could 
not be realized without in a measure interfering with the 
desire of another ? The unprejudiced man will not hesitate 
for a moment, but will say : On the contrary, my kith and kin 
are nearer to me than strangers, and it is not a duty, but a 



392 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

violation of duty, to neglect their welfare in order to gratify 
the wishes of others. Therefore, we may say, the sacrifice 
of individual desires and interests is not good in itself, but 
only in case the vital interests of others demand it: whoever 
risks his life to save another's, whoever sacrifices himself for 
his people, will be admired and praised ; conversely, whoever 
allows a fellow man miserably to perish rather than sacrifice 
his comforts or a pleasure, is condemned as selfish and 
hardhearted. 

It seems, therefore, that our judgment depends upon our 
estimate of the objective value of the ends. Can we, 
then, making this our starting-point, set up as the universal 
norm for deciding between the interests of self and of others : 
The greater interest universally takes precedence over the 
smaller interest, regardless of whether my interest or that of 
others is the greater? Universalistic utilitarianism seems to 
hit upon this standard : If the greatest happiness of the 
greatest number is the absolute end, and if the objective worth 
of acts is measured by their pleasure-producing qualities, then 
the sacrifice of personal happiness is necessary whenever it 
brings greater happiness to others, and inadmissible whenever 
it brings less or no happiness to others. 

Perhaps the universal formula can stand as such. In order 
to guard it against misconceptions, it will be necessary, how- 
ever, to define it more accurately. Above all, it must be 
remembered that happiness or welfare is not like a coin that 
may be passed from hand to hand. Happiness is the result of 
successful action ; it cannot therefore be bestowed upon a man 
as a gift, — he must work for it. All that another can do is 
to provide him with the external means of realizing it, that is, 
to lend him occasional assistance. This at once shows that the 
formula is not suited to solve mere problems in arithmetic. 
It will never be possible to calculate what direction my altru- 
istic deeds must take at any particular moment in order to 
yield the maximum of happiness. Here moral tact will 



EGOISM AND ALTRUISM 393 

always have to decide. This tact, however, cannot be guided 
so much by balancing the objective magnitude of the interests 
involved as by a kind of natural hierarchy of ends. First in 
importance are the duties which my position and calling in 
life impose upon me ; next come the duties which my par- 
ticular relations to others impose upon me ; and then those 
depending upon occasional relations to people in general. 
Even though the interests of the latter may in themselves be 
greater, my action is invariably partially influenced and, as 
a rule, determined by their distance from the ego, the centre 
of my activity. It is evident that our conduct is actually guided 
by such considerations ; every ego, we might say, arranges all 
other egoes around it in concentric circles ; the farther away 
the interests from this centre, the less weight and motive force 
they possess. That is a law of psychical mechanics. Its 
teleological necessity is obvious : if the different interests 
were to influence us according to their objective value, it 
would lead to the most curious confusion in our natures. A 
corresponding confusion in our actions would render the latter 
utterly fruitless ; the efficacy of all aid generally decreases 
in direct proportion to the distance between the giver and the 
recipient. 

This view does not, of course, deny that remote interests 
may, under certain circumstances, necessitate the sacrifice of 
nearer interests. No life is too precious when it comes to pre- 
serving the life and freedom of a people. And this is right. 
The interests of justice and of truth may demand and justify 
the sacrifice of domestic happiness. And we shall praise the 
mercy of the good Samaritan, who, without thinking of his own 
interests and safety, hastened to the rescue of the man who 
had fallen among thieves : at that moment he was indeed that 
man's nearest friend ; he was able to help him, and he alone 
was able to help him. But the rule still holds that those 
nearest to us are dearest to us. Charity begins at home, says 
a good old English proverb. 



394 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

5. Let me add a few words concerning the attitude of the 
theory of evolution to the antithesis of egoism and altruism. 

It is claimed that a system of moral philosophy which is based 
upon the theory of evolution cannot explain the social virtues. 
Natural selection may, perhaps, develop strength, shrewdness, 
and energy in the pursuit of selfish interests, but it can never 
produce self-denial, and still less self-sacrifice. Nay, the more 
selfishly an individual asserts his own interests, the stronger 
he must be, other things being equal ; and natural selection 
will necessarily produce such types. Moreover, evolutionistic 
ethics must regard these types as best adapted to the surround- 
ings, and must approve of their development : the most selfish 
egoism gives the individual the greatest power to assert his 
claims, and therefore the greatest perfection. 1 

Our answer is : This would be the case if men lived in 
isolation. But they live and, as human beings, can live only in 
societies and communities, in tribes and nations. Beasts of 
prey live in isolation, at least most of them, and here we actu- 
ally find the type mentioned above. That, however, which 
has given man such an immense advantage over all other liv- 
ing creatures, even over the strongest and fiercest brutes, is 
his peculiar fitness for collective life and collective activity, 
to which are due the development of language and intelligence, 
and likewise the invention of tools. The union of many indi- 
viduals for purposes of concentrated effort produces powerful 
effects. Hence sociableness becomes a life-preserving quality, 
like the qualities upon which it depends, such as loyalty and 
fidelity to companions, devotion and obedience to leaders, even 
at the sacrifice of individual interests,. nay of life itself. These 
qualities, in turn, are deeply and firmly rooted in the indivi- 
dual's feelings of attachment and piety to the social whole and 
in his affection for all its members. Hence all these qualities 
tend to preserve the life of a social being, and can therefore be 
developed by natural selection. They will be exercised and 

1 [See Huxley, Evolution and Ethics ; Kidd, Social Evolution. — Tk.] 



EGOISM AND ALTRUISM 395 

developed especially in the struggle for existence which the 
tribes are constantly waging with each other ; man is man's 
most dangerous foe. Hence the more fiercely the tribes 
struggle for their interests, power, and existence, the stronger 
the pressure is from without, the more essential and the firmer 
becomes the internal union. Disobedience, selfishness, dis- 
loyalty, and cowardice are condemned most severely and 
eliminated most thoroughly when the tribe is threatened by 
an enemy; whereas external peace tends somewhat to loosen 
the internal union. In times of peace there arises a desire for 
individual liberty, an inclination to advance selfish interests, 
to obtain advantages over companions, in short, the calculating 
commercial spirit. So long as the tribe exists pre-eminently 
for battle, it will not permit such inclinations to show them- 
selves, and will ruthlessly suppress them whenever they arise. 
We therefore find the social instincts unusually well developed 
upon primitive stages of civilization. The individual lives only 
as the member of a tribe or city ; he cannot, nor does he care 
to, live outside. Piety, loyalty, and courage are the virtues 
extolled by the heroic ages. 

Let us now consider Herbert Spencer's view that the altru- 
istic or social impulses are constantly growing at the expense 
of the egoistic impulses. He shows in his Data of Ethics 1 
that human nature more completely adjusts itself to the con- 
ditions of social life. Wars become less frequent, hence the 
militant instincts, which are adapted to the natural state of 
the war of all against all, gradually disappear ; the social 
instincts take their place, the militant type gives way to the 
industrial type, the type produced by peaceful co-operation. 
Spencer refers to his great biological generalization, accord- 
ing to which, " altruistic labors on behalf of the young in- 
crease with a decreasing sacrifice of parental lives to the lives 
of offspring." He therefore expects altruism to attain a level 
"such that the ministration to others' happiness will be- 

i [Chapter XIV.J 



396 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

come a daily need, a level such that the lower egoistic 
satisfactions will be continually subordinated to this higher 
egoistic satisfaction." Simultaneously with the progress of 
civilization, natural sufferings and privations of all kinds 
become less frequent, and altruism gradually ceases to be 
compassion and self-sacrifice and assumes the form of sym- 
pathetic gratification, " which costs the receiver nothing, but 
is a gratis addition to his egoistic gratifications." Indeed, 
Spencer is occupied with the thought that the desire for altruis- 
tic satisfactions may at some future time become so strong 
that each may insist on taking an undue share of them ; but, 
he hopes, " altruistic competition, first reaching a com- 
promise under which each restrains himself from taking an 
undue share of altruistic satisfactions, eventually rises to a 
conciliation, under which each takes care that others shall 
have their opportunities for altruistic satisfactions." 

Spencer adds that he does not expect that these conclusions 
will meet with any considerable acceptance, or that those " who 
profess Christianity and practise paganism " can feel sympathy 
with such a view. Even at the risk of being reckoned among 
the latter, I cannot refrain from recording my objections. 

Spencer bases his expectations of the future upon the past 
course of development, which is their only possible ground. 
His idea of this evolution, however, seems to me to be 
one-sided. He overlooks a fact, of which he is, of course, 
usually aware, that war is a strongly socializing force ; sim- 
ultaneously with the hostile instincts it produces social 
instincts. Civilization, which makes wars less frequent, weak- 
ens the militant instincts, on the one hand, and loosens the 
internal unity on the other. Spencer describes historical 
development as a progressive socialization, in which there is 
a gradual abatement of war. Something like this un- 
doubtedly occurs ; we no longer live, like the Indian, with 
weapons constantly in our hands ; and economic labor is be- 
coming more and more differentiated and organized. We 



EGOISM AND ALTRUISM 397 

also have the right to assume that human nature will adapt 
itself to these changes in the conditions of life, that it will 
become better fitted for social labor. The Germans who 
fought against Marius and Caesar, two thousand years ago, 
could hardly work side by side with their modern descendants 
in the factory or the counting room. But we should not 
identify fitness for collective life with altruistic feelings ; men 
may work together constantly without experiencing feelings 
of brotherly love : their feelings may be intensely egoistic. I 
believe there can be no doubt that feelings of distrust, hatred, 
and envy are much more common in our industrial society than 
they were among the old German peasants : among the latter 
competition, forgery, fraud, speculation, friction between labor- 
ers and employers, were unheard of ; every household formed 
an essentially separate economic unity. The more complicated 
the co-operation, the greater the opportunity for friction. 
Where shall we find the most collisions : among a group of 
officials, teachers, and clergymen, or among a group of peas- 
ants or a company of soldiers ? No one will be in doubt as 
to his answer. Of course, I do not wish to deny that, whereas 
in a peasant village men are rather indifferent to each other, 
feelings of respect, devotion, and friendship are, if not more 
frequent, at least more intense in particular cases, among 
the former group ; all I mean to say is that the personal 
relations existing between the members are more pronounced 
in every direction : there is greater enmity and disrespect on 
the one side and more friendship and confidence on the 
other. 

Spencer appeals to the evolution of domestic relations in 
support of his view. I believe these relations show the same 
characteristics ; they are more pronounced in every way. 
Families are now living together in much closer union than 
was possible in primitive times ; but there are also families 
among whose members discord and mutual hatred prevail 
to a degree absolutely unknown to primitive ages. This is 



398 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

quite natural, for the more marked the individualities, the 
more intensely will they attract and repel each other. How 
happily and indifferently the animals dwell together in the 
herd ! 

The same is true of the relations existing between the 
different nations. True, peace seems to be the permanent 
condition of civilized nations, war an interruption, while 
among savage tribes the permanent condition is war. But 
by the side of the bloody and destructive wars of the former, 
the conflicts of the latter seem like child's play. Will wars 
disappear ? Spencer anticipates that they will. But will 
nations cease desiring power, honor, advantages, and fame, 
at each other's expense ? I fear, not until they cease to 
prefer their existence to the existence of others, that is, not 
until they cease to exist. Perhaps the nations will cease 
to be what they now are ; it seems idle, however, to speculate 
upon what will happen then, what new historical forms of life 
will take their place, and what relation these will bear to 
each other. 

Is Spencer's error — supposing that the dream of eternal 
peace is an illusion — a useful error ? Perhaps some will be 
inclined to believe that it is ; that it gives us strength and 
courage to labor for the future. It may do this for partic- 
ular individuals, although such remote considerations can 
hardly exercise a great influence upon human feeling and 
action. We love and hate, desire and despise, things that are 
near us. It may also have another effect : it may make us 
discontented with and unjust to the past and the present. 
Spencer does not always seem to be free from this fault. 
Just as his great biological generalizations not infrequently 
blind him to the manifoldness of historical reality, so his fan- 
tastic optimistic view of the future renders him incapable of 
understanding and appreciating the past. Even if the future 
should be blessed with perfect happiness and virtue, the past 
generations might still maintain — if they could defend their 



EGOISM AND ALTRUISM 399 

cause — that their mode of life was not only the best for 
them, but also that it forms a stage in the development of 
humanity and possesses value in itself, just as the age of 
boyhood and youth with its games, its pleasures, and ideals 
has an independent value for the life of the individual. Let 
the " industrial type " have its happiness and its admirers, 
but let the " militant type " also receive its due ! Perhaps 
Achilles and Alexander will still find admirers in the world 
of the perfectly just and benevolent cotton-spinners. Or 
will this be possible only so long as man has something of 
the brute nature in him ? But it is not even certain that the 
brutes are most admired by the brutes. 



CHAPTER VII 

VIRTUE AND HAPPINESS 

I should like to present the views which I have expressed 
at random in the foregoing pages, on the relation between 
virtue and welfare, in connected form. We may consider the 
subject from two points of view: (1) What influence has 
virtue upon happiness ? (2) What is the effect of happiness 
upon character ? 

1. The first great and fundamental truth to which all 
peoples have been led in their reflections upon moral matters is 
the truth that the good man fares well and the wicked man ill. 
This conviction, which represents the experiences of the race, 
is expressed in countless proverbs. L. Schmidt has made an 
exhaustive collection of such proverbs and passages from 
Greek literature in the first chapter of his work on the Ethics 
of the Greeks. " It was firmly believed by the ancient Greeks," 
so he begins his work, u that the fates of men were controlled 
by stern justice, which rewards the good and punishes the 
bad." He shows that this thought, which remained the 
fundamental theme of Greek poetry and history, already per- 
vaded the Homeric poems. The administration of justice and 
the fates of men are in the hands- of the gods, or rather of 
the divine principle, for the gods as individuals are, at least 
for the poet, full of human moods and feelings ; whereas the 
gods of popular faith are essentially the guardians of justice 
and morals. They punish the evil-doer who breaks his oath, 
violates piety or the laws of hospitality, they pursue the 
murderer until his crime is avenged. To be sure, vengeance 



VIRTUE AND HAPPINESS 401 

is often delayed, perhaps it first strikes the descendants of 
the criminal, or it may not overtake the victim, according to 
the belief in the transmigration of souls and the judgment of 
the dead, which came from the Orient, until in the hereafter. 
But no evil-doer escapes punishment. The good man, on 
the other hand, is the favorite of the gods. They protect him 
and his own against evil, and permit him to complete his life 
in happiness and without sin. In the concept of the God- 
loved one (Oeofyikrjs) the notions of piety, philanthropy, and 
divine favor are inseparably interwoven. 

We discover the same fundamental note in the historical 
and poetical books of the Old Testament. The historical books 
show how the Lord makes good the promises and threats 
with which He accompanied the laws, in the lives of the in- 
dividuals and of the people. In the Psalms, too, the righteous- 
ness, faithfulness, and truth or trustworthiness of God 
are a subject of praise : He does not forsake the righteous 
who keep His commandments, but rewards their children and 
their children's children for their obedience. The righteous 
man, too, suffers, but the Lord does not forsake him, nay, the 
sufferings themselves turn into blessings; the ungodly, on 
the other hand, perish ; the wages of sin is death. 

The theoretical development of this thought forms the con- 
tent of Greek moral philosophy. Virtue and happiness are 
connected, not merely accidentally, through the mediation 
of the gods, but in the very nature of things. The concep- 
tion of happiness, however, is spiritualized ; not external 
happiness or good fortune (euTu^ta), but internal happiness, 
peace and repose of spirit, is directly joined with the exer- 
cise of virtue, or follows as its necessary effect. External 
welfare does not always fall to the lot of the wise and vir- 
tuous man ; but virtue tends to realize this also ; and in 
case he does not obtain it he is sure of finding happiness 
in his own heart. This is also the prevailing sentiment in 
modern ethics. Hobbes and Spinoza, Leibniz and Wolff, 



402 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

Shaftesbury and Hume, all attempt to point out the neces- 
sary connection between righteousness and welfare. They, 
too, regard as their cardinal doctrine the proposition that 
good conduct has welfare, bad conduct, misfortune as its natu- 
ral consequence. Virtue, welfare, honor, and inner peace go 
together as well as vice, misery, disgrace, and inner dis- 
cord. This is especially true of the two extremes : virtue and 
inner peace, vice and inner discord. The two middle terms 
of the series are not so constant. 

A pessimistic conception runs parallel with this view of the 
relation of virtue and happiness which may be called the 
optimistic view : The evil-doer is the very one who fares 
well ; fortune favors him ; while the good man fares ill. It 
would not be difficult to gather a considerable number of 
examples from the literature and the proverbs of nations, 
all of which aim to show that the wicked man succeeds 
better in the world with his evil arts than the man who 
pursues the path of truth and justice. Strategy and vio- 
lence, the latter against the weaker, the former against the 
stronger, are the means by which men rise and maintain 
themselves. The old fable of Renard the fox, which Goethe 
once called a profane world-bible, illustrates this : the lion and 
the fox, violence and strategy, control affairs, they are the king 
and the chancellor; the honest ram and the innocent hare, 
the straightforward bear and the inexperienced wolf, always 
get the worst of the bargain. — And the other bible, that is, 
the Bible of the New Testament, does not seem to contradict 
this farcical animal bible. It is one of the fundamental con- 
ceptions of primitive Christianity that the just must suffer 
much for the sake of justice and truth. Like the master, 
the disciples must endure many sufferings, disgrace, and 
persecution. 

Which of these two views is the correct one ? Is the truth of 
the first overthrown by that of the second? I do not think so. 

The sporadic pessimistic moods which now and then take 



VIRTUE AND HAPPINESS 403 

possession of every nation and every individual, may perhaps 
be explained as follows, and reconciled with the optimistic 
view. It is, of course, an undeniable fact that the good 
do not always fare well outwardly. A man may become 
sick, even though he is temperate and prudent, and, con- 
versely, a man who has no regard for his health may re- 
main hale and hearty. An able and honest man may fail in 
spite of all his exertions, and a scoundrel may accumulate 
wealth by dishonest means. Frankness often draws upon 
us the hatred of the mighty, and flattery gains their favor. — 
But the very fact that such occurrences attract so much at- 
tention and arouse such indignation seems to indicate that 
they are not the rule, but the exception. No one is 
surprised to hear of the ruin of a frivolous and reckless 
fellow ; we say it is as it should be, and forget the incident. 
But when a sensible and honest man is destroyed by all 
kinds of misfortunes, while the former prospers, it seems to 
be contrary to the nature of things, and we console our- 
selves with the general statement that ill weeds grow apace ; 
or, fools are lucky. When an honest man wins the confi- 
dence of his surroundings, and the scoundrel is unmasked 
and disgraced, everybody regards it as a matter of course. 
When, however, a man grazes the penitentiary and gets his 
millions into a safe place, we become excited, and the matter 
is discussed for months. Everybody recalls similar cases, 
and so at last the verdict is rendered : " Well, that 's the 
way of the world ! " 

Here, too, the exception proves the rule. These cases 
would not cause such excitement if they were not contrary 
to the nature of things. It is the rule that honest labor is a 
surer road to economic welfare than fraud and dishonesty ; 
that sincerity and truthfulness arouse confidence ; that false- 
hood and deception are poor means of making friends ; in 
short, that virtue is approved before God and man, and that 
vice is despised and condemned. 



404 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

There is, however, an important exception to the last rule . 
among the vicious virtue does not beget love, but hatred. 
The shameless strumpet hates the virtuous maiden ; the very 
existence of the latter is a reproach to her, she seeks her re- 
venge in ridicule, calumny, and whatever her hatred may prompt 
her to do. It is the greatest source of satisfaction to her to 
drag her innocent sister down to her own disgraceful level, for 
it silences reproach. This explains the awful impulse to lead 
others into temptation which is so common to vice. So, too, 
the flatterer and place-hunter hates the honest and truthful 
man, who goes through life with his head erect; he imagines 
that the latter watches, sees through, and despises him. 

Should vice ever gain the ascendency in society, virtue 
would no longer be attractive ; it would arouse among most 
men, if not contempt, at least hatred and aversion. And 
since the vices cannot make those who possess them agree- 
able in the sight of men — for virtue is agreeable to the vir- 
tuous, but vice is not esteemed by the vicious, especially not 
social vice — a feeling of universal hatred would take pos- 
session of society. Such a condition is foretold in the re- 
markable lines of Hesiod's pessimistically-colored poem, 
Works and Days : 

Nor sire with son, with brethren brethren blend, 

Nor host with guest, nor friend, as erst, with friend: 

Reckless of heaven's revenge, the sons behold 

The hoary parents wax too swiftly old ; 

And impious point the keen dishonoring tongue, 

With hard reproofs and bitter mockeries hung : 

Nor grateful in declining age repay 

The nurturing fondness of their better day. 

Now man's right hand is law : for spoil they wait, 

And lay their mutual cities desolate : 

Unhonored he by whom his oath is feared ; 

Nor are the good beloved, the just revered : 

With favor graced the evil-doer stands, 

Nor curbs with shame nor equity his hands ; 

With crooked slanders wounds the virtuous man. 

And stamps with perjury what hate began. 



VIRTUE AND HAPPINESS 405 

Lo ! ill-rejoicing Envy, wing'd with lies, 
Scattering calumnious rumors as she flies, 
The steps of miserable men pursue 
With haggard aspect, blasting to the view. 1 

We have here a description of hell on Grecian soil. 

This will help us to understand the Christian conception of 
the worldly success of virtue. The old Christian view of the 
world was very much like Hesiod's description. Compare 
with the latter the picture of the Grseco-Roman world in the 
first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans : " Being filled with 
all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, 
maliciousness ; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity ; 
whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, 
boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 
without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural 
affection, implacable, unmerciful, who knowing the judgment 
of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of 
death, not only do the same but have pleasure in them that 
do them." Entering the world with such notions of the 
world, which they made no endeavor to conceal, the old 
Christians could not, of course, expect to please the world ; 
they could not hope for anything but hatred and persecution, 
which did not fail to overtake them. 

The old Christians expected something else besides : the 
end of the world. They felt that such human beings could 
not live, and did not deserve to live. They were right: a 
world like the world described by Hesiod and St. Paul could 
not possibly exist. But the world did not come to an end; 
nay the unexpected has happened, and the world, after ex- 
hausting all the means of persecution at its command, has 
in a certain measure accepted Christianity and preserved it 
to the present day. Hence we are justified in assuming that 
the picture which was painted of humanity could not have 
been an exact likeness. Moreover, primitive Christianity ia 

1 [Banks's translation, Bonn's Library, lines 239 f£., p. 345. — Tr.J 



406 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

not always so hopelessly pessimistic: Christians are not 
infrequently exhorted to do good, " that they may see their 
good works and glorify their Father which is in Heaven." 
And in another place we even read that "godliness is profit- 
able unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, 
and of that which is to come," l a passage which, it must be 
confessed, would, so far as the promise of this life is con- 
cerned, have surprised us less in the Old Testament. 

We must add, moreover, that afflictions and persecutions 
are not evils for the Christian ; they are essential to his per- 
fection ; nay, they cannot disturb his peace of mind, his godli- 
ness, even for a single moment. Persecution gives him the 
blessed conviction that he is not of this world, but a child of 
the eternal kingdom of God. And so for him too, and for 
him especially, virtue and outward happiness, or at any rate 
piety and inner blessedness, are most intimately connected, 
nay they are one and the same, as the word euo-eySeta ( Grott- 
seligkeit) indicates. 

Here, too, then, we reach the conclusion that for the truly 
good man, for one whose will is completely ruled by virtue, 
virtuous action is always the greatest blessing, even though it 
should not bring external happiness, and should prove hard 
for his sensuous nature. Spinoza's maxim applies to him : 
Beatitudo non praemium virtutis, sed virtus ipsa. He, how- 
ever, whose will is not ruled by virtue, who does good from 
fear or calculation, may feel disappointed, when the outward 
success which he hoped to realize from his honesty, temper- 
ance, and benevolence, does not appear. To such a person vir- 
tue seems to be an unprofitable, or at least uncertain, means of 
happiness, and he utters pessimistic complaints, holding that 
the evil-doers fare well and the good fare ill. This, however, 
does not mean that he would have been better satisfied if he 
had reached by crooked means the goal which he complains of 
having missed by fair means. — Hence the fact remains that 

i 1 Timothy, IV., 8. 



VIRTUE AND HAPPINESS 407 

there is a universal inner relation between virtue and success or 
prosperity or happiness, while the connection between wicked- 
ness and unhappiness is equally necessary. We may perhaps 
imagine a man who satisfies his desires without fear and 
scruple, who enjoys without pangs of conscience everything 
that fortune offers him, and whom fortune favors during his 
entire life ; but can there really be such a man ? At all 
events, it would not be wise for any one of us, constituted as 
we are, to follow his example. Even though he should suc- 
ceed in everything, the hour may come when he would give 
up all that he has achieved to wipe out the past. 

2. The second question is : What is the effect of happiness 
upon character? By happiness (Gliick) we here mean ex- 
ternal happiness (euTu^/a) : wealth, power, success, fame, 
honor, health, strength, victory. What effect has the pos- 
session or pursuit of these things on character ? 

Observation of human affairs has convinced all the more 
highly civilized nations of the second great fundamental truth 
that happiness, or prosperity, or good fortune, is a menace to 
character, and finally also to welfare. We mentioned above, 
as the first maxim of Greek wisdom, the proposition that the 
good fare well and the wicked ill. We may add as the 
second : Eutuchia is not identical with eudcemonia ; un- 
alloyed happiness is not happiness. 

Prosperity produces satiety, a fat heart, as the Psalmist 
says. Such souls are filled with pride, and pride leads to 
iniquity, which calls down upon its head the wrath of God, 
and destruction. That is, according to the conception of the 
Greeks, as expressed by their poets and historians, the 
natural course of events. Only an unusual amount of good 
sense will enable a man to bear prosperity. 1 The view is 

1 Theognis, 153: 

TiVrei roi icSpos v&piv, '6rav ko.k$ 6\@os cinjTai 
'hvQpdyirip, Kal 8r<p /*)? v6os &prios if. 

Aristotle gives us in his Rhetoric (II., 15-17) an admirable description of the 
influence of eutuchia and its different forms — aristocracy, wealth, influence, and 



408 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

undoubtedly well-founded that prosperity and success have 
the tendency to make one self-satisfied and insolent. The 
prosperous man is prone to judge others harshly and himself 
mildly. His success he considers to be due entirely to his 
own exertions ; he is ready to speak uncharitably of the mis- 
fortune or failure of others, and to lay all the blame on them. 
He has no respect for the striving of others, nor sympathy 
with their misfortunes, and thus arises the habit of mind so 
hated by gods and men, which the Greeks call #/3pt? 5 inso- 
lence. This leads to the contemptuous treatment of both 
things and men, and to the shameful abuse of the weak and 
vanquished ; to a state of careless self-assurance that is soon 
followed by the fall, the inevitable result of inner exhaustion 
and heedlessness. 

It is a noteworthy fact that the mere sight of sensuous 
enjoyment usually fills the spectator with disgust ; thus, for 
instance, to watch a company of people feasting and drinking 
is apt to arouse feelings of repulsion. We naturally shrink 
from observing the satisfaction of sensuous needs. Lovers 
likewise seek solitude, and it is right for them to do so ; 
lookers-on are apt to be disgusted by their happiness. What 
makes the vain man so unbearable is the fact that he needs 
and seeks people to whom to narrate his deeds and suf- 
ferings. Biographies usually become uninteresting as soon 
as the hero has overcome all the difficulties and obstacles, the 
dangers and battles, which separated him from his goal. The 
years of rest and universal recognition, of fame and wealth, 
however well deserved they may be, are passed over by the 
biographer. Groethe showed his good sense in not extending 
his autobiography beyond the period of his entrance into 
Weimar. — "Enjoyment is degrading," says Faust — a pro- 
found truth, for the soul addicted to pleasure is conquered 
and degraded. The real secret of Faust's power of resist- 

power — on character. We moderns should have to add as a prominent form, 
literary or artistic success and a brilliant career. 



VIRTUE AND HAPPINESS 409 

ance to evil is his failure to find satisfaction in pleasure. 
The devil hopes to debase him by means of enjoyment : 
Staub soil er fressen und mit Lust} Faust eats the dust, but 
not with zest, and hence the devil cannot wholly win his 
soul. There is a noble discontent in him, which makes his 
salvation possible. 

What is true of individuals is also true of collective bodies, 
of nations, classes, parties : prosperity ruins them. They lose 
their capacity for self-criticism and self-control, they lose their 
strength and dignity, they lose the sense of what is proper and 
their standards of reality, and so, inwardly ruined, they are 
ingloriously defeated by the despised foe. Nothing in the 
world is more repulsive than a company of well-fed and self- 
satisfied persons, who boast of their fatness and satiety ; 
nothing is so apt to arouse all the healthy instincts of hu- 
manity against it, nothing therefore so certain of destruc- 
tion, — as history proves. — The history of the church also 
confirms this truth, nay, perhaps it is nowhere so self- 
evident as there, for the church triumphant and dominant 
invariably becomes haughty, stubborn, hard-hearted, and per- 
secuting. But as her external authority increases, her inner 
authority decreases, until ruin overtakes her. Then comes 
the reaction. The despised and persecuted church revives ; 
humility, self-sacrifice, and heroism again show themselves ; 
she again gains power over the souls of men. Then the 
cycle begins anew. The powers of the world approach her, 
she becomes a power among others, who must be reckoned 
with, who can give favors and accept favors. Honors and 
wealth are showered upon her, she controls desirable posi- 
tions, she places the dogmas and the worship under the 
protection of the police. And now come the clever, the 
covetous, the worldly, and the aristocratic, and are anxious 
to serve the church. And the church allows them to serve 
her and to control her, and again to ruin her. 

1 Dust shall he eat and with a zest. 



410 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

Such are the consequences of prosperity. Now look at the 
other side of the picture, at the educating, strengthening, 
purifying effects of adversity, failure, and suffering. Misfor- 
tune steels the will ; the will that can bear trouble is made 
elastic and grows strong under pressure. It gives us patience 
to bear the inevitable, it exercises our ability to measure and 
to test ourselves and our powers ; it makes us modest in our 
demands and charitable in our judgments of others' failings. 
Prosperity develops the repulsive qualities of human nature ; 
adversity unites men, making them friendly, patient, and 
just. When a storm suddenly comes up on a summer day, 
we may see how the persons of high and low degree who 
avoided and repelled each other while the sun was shin- 
ing, now seek refuge beneath the same roof, and bear and 
even jest with each other. So it is when a great misfortune 
overtakes a city or a nation ; it breaks down all the barriers 
of pride and hatred which were erected in the days of pros- 
perity. Finally, the highest moral perfection is not matured 
without misfortune and suffering. Christ entered into glory 
through suffering. Rejected by the leaders of His people, 
condemned by the unjust, mistreated by the puppets of the 
mighty, reviled and cursed by the mob, denied and forsaken 
by His disciples, He won the highest crown. Well could 
He say, upon the cross, with head bowed down, " It is 
finished " ; the highest that can be achieved upon earth 
had been accomplished: He had suffered evil for the sake 
of the good, without losing faith in the good, and without 
changing His inner peace into hatred and contempt for 
humanity. 

Christianity is wholly a philosophy of suffering. Tentatio 
est vita hominis super terram, Job's maxim, expresses the fund- 
amental mood of Christianity. Nor did the Greeks fail to 
appreciate this truth. Misfortune has an educating influence. 
" No human being can be trained without blows," says a line 
of Menander, which Goethe, who could hardly be called a friend 



VIRTUE AND HAPPINESS 411 

of suffering, significantly places at the beginning of his auto- 
biography. But the faith of the Greek people in the purify- 
ing and elevating power of suffering is especially emphasized 
in the writings of the tragic poets. The chorus in iEschylus's 
Agamemnon gives voice to it : " For Zeus leads us to wis- 
dom and sanctifies the law that suffering is our teacher." 

Suffering is punishment ; but for him who accepts the pun- 
ishment, it is also a remedy against that disease of the soul, 
which is caused by prosperity, vppis, self-righteous harshness. 
That is the idea expressed in the (Edipus tragedies. The pure 
man, however, who becomes the victim of undeserved misfor- 
tune shows, by bearing it tranquilly, the most sublime power 
and independence of the human will with regard to the 
natural course of things. So the dying Socrates has become 
for the philosophers a living witness of the truth that no 
evil can befall man so long as he refuses to regard it as 
such. " How can that be an evil," Marcus Aurelius asks, 
" that does not make me worse ? " 

Hence we may say that real happiness is a proper mixture 
of so-called happiness (good fortune) and misfortune. A 
man's lot is not happy when all his desires are always and 
fully realized, — but when he obtains a proper share of joy 
and sorrow, success and failure, plenty and want, struggle 
and peace, work and rest, and obtains it at the right time. 
Just as the plant needs sunshine and rain in order to thrive, 
so the inner man cannot prosper without both cheerful and 
gloomy days. If everything went against him, if he experi- 
enced nothing but trouble, he would, if such a life were at all 
possible, necessarily turn from the world and life with horror. 
Nor could a man call himself happy if his wishes were 
realized as soon as they rose in his soul. Even if satiety 
and pride would not ruin him — a result hardly to be avoided 
— he would miss some very important human experiences, 
he would not bring out some quite essential phases of human 
nature. Just as a general who has never met with defeat 



412 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

would remain ignorant of all the resources of his mind, and 
be unable to unfold them, so a man who has never wanted 
for anything, and has never failed in anything, would not 
be able to develop all the powers of his mind and will. He 
would feel that fate had withheld from him something essen- 
tial to the perfection of his being, and he would, perhaps, like 
Polycrates, feel terrified at his " happiness." 

And so we may be permitted to say that life, as we find it, 
ig on the whole adapted to the real needs of human nature ; it 
brings to every one good and evil days, success and trials. We 
do not hear many complaining that there are too many happy 
days, but the complaint is common that there is an excess of 
misery and want. It can, of course, never be proved that 
fate succeeds in producing the proper combination in every 
case : that is simply a matter of faith. And perhaps it is 
often hard to believe it, perhaps harder to believe it in the 
presence of the infinite misery suffered by others than of our 
own. We see countless creatures perishing from a lack of 
care and prosperity, from a lack of appropriate problems 
to solve, from a lack of the necessaries of life. And yet 
would other life-conditions have produced more favorable re- 
sults ? Who can tell ? How often have nations afterwards 
looked back upon times which they at first regarded as times 
of degradation and extreme misery, with feelings of grati- 
tude and pride ! Is there an epoch in the history of Ger« 
many upon which the eye would rather dwell than upon the 
period after the battle of Jena ? Is not the time of " the 
greatest humiliation " in truth also the time of the greatest 
elevation ? Were all the good and- great men ever so hon- 
ored, so united as then ? And the reverse is also true. The 
days of victory, success, wealth, and greatness, look differ- 
ent in retrospect. The Dutch painters of the seventeenth 
century evidently wish to show us how a nation lives when 
it is too prosperous. We might, if we chose, make soma 
observations nearer home. 



VIRTUE AND HAPPINESS 413 

We are reminded of the thoughtful poem of Chamisso : 
Die Kreuzschau. A man complaining of the heaviness of 
his cross is taken to a large hall where the crosses of all 
human beings are stored. He is allowed to choose a new one 
for himself. He lays down his own and begins to look 
around for a more suitable one. After a careful and deliberate 
search he finally finds a cross that seems most satisfactory 
to him. Upon examining it more closely, he discovers that 
it is his own cross, which he had for the moment failed to 
recognize. 

There are people who would show us a better world 
than our real world, and therefore denounce the real world 
as a failure. If they were allowed to realize their im- 
aginary world and to live in it, they would perhaps discover 
that the conditions are far more satisfactory in our despised 
world. It frequently happens that persons leaving their 
country full of hatred and contempt, experience a change of 
heart after they have lived in their new home for a short 
while, and discover, for the first time, how deeply they 
really love their fatherland. If our pessimists could be trans- 
ported to another planet for a short period, they would per- 
haps learn to think of the earth with longing and gratitude. 
Perhaps the cure is nearer at hand than we imagine. 
Perhaps a time will again come when misfortune and sorrow 
will teach our people to appreciate life and its goods more 
highly. Pessimism flourishes in times of prosperity and 
exuberance. May the following lines — in which one who 
lived in those days of misfortune and spiritual exaltation, 
Wilhelm von Humboldt, gives expression to his philosophy of 
life — prepare us for the future : 

An ehernen Gesetzen fiihrt gekettet 
Der irdischen Geschleehter Wandelreihen 
Das Schicksal unerbittlich seinen Pfad ; 
Zufrieden, wenn das hohe Ziel es rettet, 
Bleibt kalt es, ob sie leiden, ob sich freuen. 
Auch uns hat es auf Rosen nicht gebettet \ 



414 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

Doch aus des Busens Tiefe strtimt Gedeihen 
Derfesten Duldung und entschloss'ner That. 
Nicht Schmerz ist Ungliick, Gliick nicht immer Freude, 
Wer sein Geschick erfiillt, dem lacheln beide. 1 

1 From Haym's Life of Humboldt, p. 258. [Inexorable Fate leads th€ 
changing ranks of the earthly generations, shackled by iron laws ; happy when 
she realizes her high goal, she remains indifferent to their joys and sorrows. 
We too have not been resting on a bed of roses ; but our hearts are strong in 
patience and full of energetic action. Pain is not a misfortune, pleasure noli 
always a blessing ; whoever fulfils his destiny suffers both.] 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE RELATION OF MORALITY TO RELIGION * 

1. The question which I shall attempt to answer in this 
chapter is : Is there an inner connection — one inherent in 
the nature of things, and therefore indissoluble, — between 
religion and morality, or are morality and religion independent 
of each other, and merely accidentally related ? 

An historical reflection will prepare us for the answer. 2 — 
It is one of the safest propositions of anthropology that a 
very intimate relation exists between the religion and the 
morality of a people, at least at a certain stage of its develop- 
ment. The customs have the sanction of the gods ; the com- 
mandments of religion and morality form a unified code of 
laws ; piety and morality are regarded as one and the same 
thing. Let me simply call to mind the best known example. 
In the laws of Moses, religious, moral, and legal duties appear 
as wholly homogeneous parts of one law of God. All of 
them are equally binding ; all flow from the will of God, and 
the punishment of every violation is regarded by the people 
as a religious duty. The fear of God is the foundation of 

1 [Janet, Theory of Morals, chap. XII. ; Steinthal, Allgemeine Ethik, pp. 
9 ff. ; Hoffding, Ethik, XXXI.-XXXIII. ; Gizycki, Moralphilosophie, pp. 
329-495; Coit's translation, pp. 208-276; Schurman, Belief in God, Lecture 
III. ; Wundt, Ethik, Part I., chap. II. ; Hyslop, Elements of Ethics, chap. IX. ; 
Mackenzie, Manual, chap. XVII.; Bowne, Principles of Ethics, chap. VII. ; 
Smyth, Christian Ethics, Introduction, V. ; J. Seth, Ethical Principles, Part III., 
chaps. II., III. ; Pollock, Essays in Jurisprudence and Ethics, chap. XI. ; Runze, 
Ethik, p. 56. — Tr.] 

2 I have worked out many ideas which are merely suggested here, in my Intro- 
duction to Philosophy (5th edition, 1898) [translated by Frank Thilly]. 



416 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

morality; pious and good, godless and bad, are synonymous 
terms. Christianity and Mohammedanism accept this view. 
We find it also among the Greeks and Romans, Hindoos and 
Persians, Egyptians and Assyrians. The entire life of the in- 
dividual and society is regulated by religion ; all the institutions 
of the state and society, all customs and usages which govern 
the life of the individual, have a religious basis. We note the 
same connection between religion and morals among the most 
civilized tribes of all the native peoples of America, among 
the Mexicans and Peruvians. Waitz quotes several examples 
of Mexican wisdom which would do credit to a Hebrew or 
Christian moral philosopher. This he considers a convincing 
proof of the high state of mental advancement reached by 
those nations. " There is," this experienced student of 
anthropology adds, "hardly a more trustworthy sign and a 
safer criterion of the civilization of a people than the degree 
in which the demands of pure morality are supported by their 
religion and interwoven with their religious life." 1 

How are we to explain the union of religion and morality ? 
Many facts seem to oppose the view that the connection is an 
absolutely necessary one. In the lowest stages of development 
religion exercises a separate function. It appears in the form 
of magic practices, having no connection with morality, so far 
as there is such a thing ; fetiches are indifferent to the conduct 
of men, except so far as the latter directly concerns them ; 
" idolatry " and " morality " have nothing to do with each 
other. Hence, if this is to be regarded as the original state, 
how was the connection between religion and morality brought 
about ? Or, if this question is left- unanswered, upon what 
was the connection originally based ? 

1 Th. Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturculker, IV., 128. An elaborate and thought- 
ful historical discussion of the relation of religion to custom and morality may be 
found in Wundt's Ethics, Section I., chaps. 2 and 3. The work of Fustel de 
Coulanges, La cite' antique (translated), shows that the political and legal insti- 
tutions of the Greeks and Romans were originally intimately connected with 
religion ; the oldest codes embrace worship, morality, and law, just like the laws 
of Mosea. Law was for a long time a priestly science among the Romans. 



THE RELATION OF MORALITY TO RELIGION 417 

We might, looking at the matter in a somewhat superficial 
manner, attempt the following explanation. Acts of worship 
constitute the earliest subject-matter of science. Complete 
accuracy and correctness are of the utmost importance ; the 
slightest mistake may make the act ineffectual or even injuri- 
ous : think of the Hindoo or Jewish sacrificial worship. 
Hence the priests are the first scientists They develop and 
transmit the great science of correct worship. Here arise 
the first fixed rules which exclude all arbitrariness. To these 
the demands of custom and of law are added and gradually 
form with them a unified code of law, which embraces every- 
thing that is binding upon all the members of the people. 
The transcendent sanction, which first attaches to religious 
duties, is thereby extended to the decrees of morals and law. 

An original inner affinity between religious and moral-legal 
duties perhaps favors the union. All religious command- 
ments resemble each other : they demand sacrifices, ablutions, 
abstinences, restrictions of desire. All acts oi worship ex- 
press submission of the individual will to a higher and more 
mighty power ; humility wins the favor of the gods, insolence 
provokes their wrath. The same is true of the demands of 
custom ; they too limit and bind the individual will, they too 
enjoin submission to authority. With them too insolence 
leads to the violation of custom and to impiety towards the 
gods. The gods are enemies of insolence, and so become the 
protectors of custom. It is worthy of note that the weak and 
outlawed, strangers and helpless ones, everywhere enjoy the 
protection of the gods. Offences against guests, or against 
helpless old age or children are particularly punishable by the 
gods. 

The subject, however, is capable of a profounder treatment. 
— We may define religion in a general way as faith in the 
transcendent. It invariably presupposes a feeling of the 
insufficiency of the empirical world. Fetichism and shamanism 
too are attempts to accomplish by magic influences upon trans^ 



418 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

cendent powers or beings what cannot be attained by natural 
means. As life develops, the will is spiritualized. In the 
lowest stages of human existence it desires scarcely more 
than the satisfaction of animal needs. With the advance of 
civilization it aims not merely at life, but at a beautiful and 
good life, at an ideal of humanity. This change in the 
direction of man's will produces a corresponding change in 
the form of the transcendent world : the manifold world of 
gods of polytheism is the creation of the higher will. Perma- 
nent, personal, historical beings take the place of the vague, 
perishable, nameless magic forces of fetichism. In the gods, 
man's ideals of a beautiful and good life are realized. The 
Greek world of gods is the objectification of the ideal human 
world, created by the longing of the Greek people for the 
beautiful and the good. Each of these divine personages 
represents some phase of the Greek ideal of humanity. And 
this transcendent world is not indifferent to or without 
influence upon the empirical world ; the gods are ever mind- 
ful of man ; guiding him, protecting him, and punishing 
him, they fashion his will to perfection. The magic char- 
acter is not entirely lost ; the attempt to influence the will of 
the gods in order to realize through them immediate indi- 
vidual purposes, health, wealth, victory, success, undoubtedly 
occupied a prominent place in the actual religious practices of 
the people. But theurgy gradually lost its importance among 
the leaders and even among the larger circles of the popu- 
lation — particularly through the mediation of art — and the 
disinterested contemplation of the gods as the perfect models 
and guides of life, an attitude which-is expressed in the beauti- 
ful figure of the praying boy, came to be regarded as one of the 
essential elements in religion. — In monotheism which appears 
in history as the last and highest development of religion, the 
ideal element is still more pronounced. Christianity does 
away with magic entirely ; Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, 
Thy will be done! Christian prayer presupposes the belief 



THE RELATION OF MORALITY TO RELIGION 419 

that whatever may come comes from God and is good ; its 
real purpose is to make the heart submissive to God's will. 
God's will, however, is absolute holiness, justice, and grace. 
The deepest will of the purest man objectifies itself in the holy 
will of God, and then conceives itself as a revelation of God. 

We may therefore say that the religion of a people mirrors 
its own will in a transcendent world, in which the objects 
of its deepest longings are realized. For faith this transcend- 
ent world is the real and true reality, compared with which 
the empirical world is unworthy and unreal. But they are 
not separated by an absolute chasm. All pure striving comes 
from above and tends upward. 

This determines the relation of morality to religion. Both 
spring from the same root, the yearning of the will for 'per- 
fection. But that which is a demand in morals becomes a 
reality in religion. Perfection is described by morality in 
abstract formulae, it is intuited in religion in concrete form 
as a divine, holy, and blessed life. And so, too, morality 
and religion are seen to be two phases of the same thing in 
the subject : the individual is moral in so far as his willing 
and acting strive after perfection, pious in so far as his 
feelings, his faith, and his hopes, are inspired with the image 
of the highest. 

Let us now consider the effect of the union of religion and 
morals. There can hardly be a doubt that the religious 
sanction of custom and the moral laws has, in a large 
measure, assisted in the moral discipline of the individual. 
The absolute fear (religio) which hinders the violation of 
religious commandments is extended to the moral laws. 
The belief in a life after death has been especially influential 
in this direction. In the next world man is in the immediate 
power of the gods ; here upon this earth their power is more 
remote, their interference occasional ; the transgressor be- 
lieves that he can sin in secret. In the hereafter, however, 
he appears before the judgment seat without concealment, 



420 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

before the judgment of the dead, which is pictured by bo 
many religions as the gradually approaching goal of life. 
Then everything will be brought to light, merit and guilt 
will be judged before a just judge. Whoever is full of guilt, 
whoever has lived an unworthy life, whoever has been remiss 
in his duties towards the gods, will suffer for it, and con- 
versely, whoever has lived a brave, pious, righteous life, may 
hopefully enter eternity. Nowhere is this idea more effec- 
tively brought out than in the Christian church. The great 
judgment day, which will end our earthly history, and finally 
decide the fate of all human beings, rewarding some with 
eternal blessedness, punishing others with eternal damnation, 
is a conception which has made a powerful impression upon 
the consciousness of man. 

Thus the fear and the hope of the hereafter become 
powerful protectors of morality. 

These impulses appear in purer form in deeper souls. 
God is not merely the stern judge, but also a father who in 
his merciful love forgives man. The chief concern of the 
pious man is, not to prove unworthy of this love, not to dis- 
appoint the Holy One, not to exclude himself by deeds of 
darkness from fellowship in the realm of light. In the 
base soul religion becomes base ; future reward and punish- 
ment become a matter of speculation as it were: the re- 
mission of moral duties is purchased by an exact fulfilment 
of ecclesiastical duties, the forgiveness of sins by dispensa- 
tions. This is a perversion of religion which the systemati- 
zation of worship tends to produce in a church. Jesus found 
it in Judaism as Pharisaism, Luther found it in Christianity 
as the system of " good works," Spener found it in Luther- 
ism as " orthodoxy ; " " faith " (fides mercenaria, to use 
Kant's expression) had become the ultimate "good work," 
taking the place of all the others ; and we find the same thing 
existing to-day. This " pseudo-worship (Afterdiemt) of 
God in the statutory religion" as Kant calls it, is a great 



THE RELATION OF MORALITY TO RELIGION 421 

menace to religious-church life. It dulls the sense of truth 
and the moral feeling; it also fosters fanaticism: Whoever 
fails to respect our worship, cannot respect us; he is our 
enemy and therefore God's enemy, who favors and recognizes 
our service; to persecute and kill him is therefore a good 
work and one with which he is well pleased. 

2. Let us now return to the question which we asked at the 
outset : Is the relation between morality and religion an es- 
sential one, and therefore indissoluble, or is it merely a pass- 
ing phenomenon, peculiar to a particular stage of development ? 
Will the connection be severed in the future ? Will there 
then be a perfect morality without any religiosity ? 

This question was not seriously debated until recently. For 
centuries nothing seemed more self-evident than the insepar- 
ableness of morality and religion. The tie between the two 
was first loosened by the violent commotions to which all 
theoretical conceptions have been subjected since the beginning 
of modern times. The church belief first began to wane in 
scientific and educated circles ; infidelity has gradually taken 
possession of the masses also. A purely physical conception 
of the universe now widely prevails. The belief is also com- 
mon that morality and religion, ethics and metaphysics, are 
wholly different things; that conduct is totally independent of 
the idea which one may have of the constitution of the world, 
and that his world-view is therefore the individual's private 
concern. A man may be a materialist, atheist, pantheist, 
sceptic, or anything else, without in the least affecting our 
estimate of his moral worth. 

There are unquestionably also narrower circles in which this 
view is emphatically opposed. The consequence of infidelity, 
it is declared, is to enjoy the present, regardless of the future ; 
theoretical materialism necessarily produces practical materi- 
alism, — at any rate this is its logical consequence, even though 
many a theoretical materialist is hindered by custom and habit 
from drawing it in practice. 



422 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

After all we have said before, we cannot support the view 
that a life ignoring the laws of morality follows as a logical 
necessity from any particular metaphysical belief or unbelief. 
We shall prefer to say : Whatever may be a man's notion of 
the nature of things, the laws of morality are none the less 
binding upon him ; they are not arbitrary prescriptions, the 
observance of which is advisable from the standpoint of re- 
wards and punishments. They are rather laws of nature in 
the sense that the welfare of a life depends upon their ob- 
servance. And the opinions of men in no wise affect them. 
Hence if any one were to infer from an atheistic-materialistic 
conception that the laws of morality had no further claim 
upon him, he would be in error, and would have to bear the 
consequences of his error. 

Nor do I believe that an immoral life will actually result 
from unbelief, any more than I believe that a moral life is the 
invariable consequence of faith. There are, undoubtedly, 
honest and reliable men, nay even passionate and self-sacrific- 
ing idealists, in the ranks of those who have repudiated not 
only the church creed, but all religion, just as there are 
among those whose church-belief has not been shaken in the 
least, who perform all their religious duties in the most punc- 
tilious and conscientious manner, and who are also capable 
of true religious feeling, men whose lives and acts are full of 
stubborn perverseness, cold-hearted pride, and hypocritical 
falsehood. 

Still, I do not believe that morality and religion, conduct 
and Weltanschauung ', are entirely indifferent to each other. 

There are two views of the world which are radically 
opposed to each other. The central thought of the one is that 
the good is an essential element in the world, that reality 
exists through the good and for the sake of the good. We 
can call this conception idealistic, following Plato's terminology, 
who bases the world upon the idea of the good. We may also 
call it theistic, if we mean by belief in God the trust that the 



THE RELATION OF MORALITY TO BELiGION 423 

good is the ground and the goal of the world, or, to use 

Fichte's expression, that the world-order is in the last analysis 
a moral order. Every theistic belief, in whatever form it may 
arise, can be embraced under this most general formula. 
Opposed to idealism we have materialism ; according to it the 
world-principle is in its essence absolutely indifferent to dis- 
tinctions of value. The atoms and their uniform motions, of 
which the whole of reality is composed, have originally abso- 
lutely nothing to do with the good and the evil, the rational 
and the irrational. In the course of time all kinds of com- 
binations, among them also living beings, are formed by the 
purely accidental conjunction of atoms ; in these, feelings of 
pleasure and pain arise, as peculiarly modified processes of 
motion, and things are accordingly characterized as pleasant 
and unpleasant, good and bad. Like all combinations of 
atoms, these, too, will again be dissolved by chance ; the indi- 
viduals will constantly perish, and finally also the species will 
die ; the conditions for the formation of living beings will no 
longer exist, and then pleasure and pain, good and evil, will 
disappear together, leaving nothing but unfeeling atoms and 
irrational laws behind. 

Now I believe that the acceptance of either one of these 
antagonistic world-views is not wholly unrelated to a man's will 
and conduct. A life containing ideal elements itself will 
naturally incline to the idealistic conception, while an empty 
and planless life will tend to the opposite view. For not 
the world-view, as has often been thought, but the disposition 
of the will is the all-important thing. Life determines faith, 
not faith life. What kind of philosophy you will choose, as 
Fichte truly said, depends upon what kind of man you are. 
If your life is a medley of blind impulses and momentary 
desires and moods, how can you form a higher conception of 
the universe ? Every man judges the value of the world 
by the value of human life, and he forms his opinion of 
the value of human life from the experiences of his own life. 



424 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

In case the latter is an aimless whirl of empty momentary 
desires, it will be suited by a world which is itself an aimless 
play of atoms. An empty life produces a nihilistic conception 
of the universe. Conversely, whoever fills his own life with 
things of permanent value, whoever pursues lasting ends, great 
ideals, will place a different value, first, upon his own life, then 
upon the life of humanity, and finally upon the world at large. 
He will see a purpose and meaning in history, of which his 
own life forms a part ; he will interpret the past in the light of 
his own aspirations, believing that all good and great men 
battled for the same cause ; he will look upon the future as 
his : men of faith and action always believe that the future is 
on their side ; finally, the whole of reality will seem to him to 
be governed by the purpose to bring about the very things for 
which he is zealously and honestly striving. Thus the value 
which we put upon our own lives is finally predicated of the 
things themselves. 

One's conception of the universe, we may therefore say, is, 
so far as it includes and expresses judgments of value, the 
mirror of one's will. Everybody interprets the phenomena so 
that they may harmonize with his character. Just as every 
life surrounds itself with symbols of what it holds dear and 
valuable, so it strives to formulate a conception of things 
which will have a quieting and elevating influence upon the 
will. An empty will is satisfied with a nihilistic world-view ; 
an idealistic world-view would leave a painful sting in it ; it 
would appear before the world as the only being unwilling to 
harmonize with the purposes of the universe. A will with 
ideals, on the other hand, could not .bear to think of itself as 
nothing but a strange anomaly in the world, as a freak of 
nature again to be cast aside. The thought alone would 
satisfy it that it was derived from the world-principle it- 
self, and in essential harmony with it, and that neither its 
achievements nor its strivings could be lost. 

Thus life influences faith. Faith then also undoubtedly reacts 



THE RELATION OF MORALITY TO RELIGION 425 

upon life. The belief in the power of the good, the belief in God, 
strengthens the courage and arouses hope. We shall perhaps 
be compelled to say, that nothing truly great has ever been 
accomplished in this world without faith. All religions are 
based upon faith ; through faith their founders and disciples 
have overcome the world. Believing in an idea all martyrs 
have lived, fought, and suffered, — believing in the ultimate 
triumph of the good for which they sacrificed their lives, 
they have died. Who could die for a cause in whose ultimate 
and enduring success he did not believe ? And what would 
be left of the history of the world if all these things were 
stricken out ? Unbelief, on the other hand, is discouraging : 
what is the use in trying ; let the things go as they please ; 
who knows what the next day will bring forth ? So Goethe 
says : " The real and sole theme of the history of the world 
is the conflict between belief and unbelief. All epochs in 
which faith reigns supreme, under whatever form it may be, 
are bright, uplifting, and fruitful for contemporaries and 
posterity. All epochs, on the other hand, in which unbelief, 
in any form, gains a weak victory, even though temporarily 
boasting of a sham glory, will pass away, because no one will 
take the trouble to acquire a knowledge of the unfruitful." 1 

3. But has not the progress of scientific knowledge rendered 
faith idle f Are not theism and idealism a mere shamefaced 
survival of the ancient superstition which first flourished so 
luxuriantly in the miraculous world of gods of polytheism ? 
Has not science convinced all those who are capable of seeing 
things as they are, that blind forces which know nothing of 
good and evil determine the course of the world ? 

Many are of the opinion that such is the case ; they believe 
that scientific knowledge has left religion with nothing to 
stand on. I do not share this belief. This is not the place 
to develop a system of metaphysics; but I shall suggest a 
few points of view from which the matter may be considered. 

1 Notes to Westostlichcr Divan. 



426 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

It is true that the belief in gods as individuals resembling 
human beings, having an empirical existence somewhere and 
occasionally acting upon our world, is dying out and will never 
be revived. And it is immaterial whether we assume several 
such beings or only a single one. A monotheistic scheme, 
which conceives God as an individual by the side of others 
and permits him occasionally to act upon the world as upon 
something external and foreign to him, does not essentially 
differ from polytheism. If it be insisted that such a concep- 
tion alone can be regarded as theism, it will be hard to contra- 
dict those who claim that science leads to atheism. We 
should, however, have to add that atheism in this sense is evi- 
dently not the end but only the beginning of philosophy. It 
is not a positive theory of reality, but simply negates the view 
that there exists before, outside of, by the side of, above, the 
world a separate being who made the world, as a watchmaker 
constructs a clock, according to a plan, and now occasionally 
interferes with its course. The repudiation of a false theory 
is, however, not itself a theory. The question remains : How 
shall we explain the universe, how is it constructed, what is 
its essence? 

Or is that no longer a problem ? Is it perhaps a settled 
fact that the world is nothing but an accumulation of an 
infinite number of little bodies, which accidentally congre- 
gating in empty space, come into reciprocal action with each 
other, and in this way produce the particular combinations 
which reality reveals to us ? 

There are persons who regard this view almost as self- 
evident. It is especially common among young people who 
have just discarded their school notions, and have substituted 
for them a few ideas gathered from popular scientific writ- 
ings. It is rarely held by the deeper and more independent 
thinkers ; indeed such men are not easily persuaded that any- 
thing is self-evident. Neither Plato nor Aristotle, Spinoza 
nor Leibniz, Hume nor Kant, Schopenhauer nor Hegel, Lotze 



THE RELATION OF MORALITY TO RELIGION 427 

nor Fechner, Mill nor Spencer, was able to convince himself 
of the adequacy of the theory. And in truth, no one can 
regard it as self-evident unless he is anxious to have an 
hypothesis without God, and therefore refuses to subject the 
view to a closer examination. When we look into the matter 
a little more carefully, we find some rather strange and sur- 
prising results. So the world consists of innumerable abso- 
lutely self-sufficient atoms, absolutely independent of each 
other in essence and being, each existing for itself, and re- 
gardless of all the rest ? But then how does it happen that 
all of them really do have regard for each other, so much 
so that, according to the assumptions of the physicist, the 
behavior of each element is uniformly determined by that 
of all the others ? For that is what the law of universal in- 
teraction means : it asserts no more and no less than that 
the totality of all physical processes constitutes but one 
single large interconnected process. Is not the actual be- 
havior of the atoms somewhat surprising in the light of the 
above theory ? Should we not rather expect each atom, 
since it is absolutely independent, to act in an absolutely inde- 
pendent way, regardless of all the rest ? Or are the atoms 
compelled by the laws of nature to agree with each other ? — 
But the laws are nothing but the expression of the actual 
behavior of these atoms, not something existing for itself 
and controlling them from without. — And how astonishing 
that these atoms which have come into the world without 
any regard for each other, should exhibit such a similarity 
of essence and behavior that it can be expressed in uni- 
versal formulae ! Should we not rather have to regard an 
infinite diversity of essence and behavior as a priori probable ? 
And how strange, moreover, that so much should be evolved 
from these atoms: cosmic systems, organic bodies, beings who 
feel and think ! How remarkable that such processes should 
arise by a mere change in the arrangement of those little 
pebbles of which the world is said to be composed ! Would the 



428 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

atomist not be surprised if he had never seen the world as it 
now is, but had merely observed the assumed chaos of atoms, 
and should suddenly, after trying all sorts of combinations, 
hit upon sensations and thoughts ? Would he not perhaps say : 
It seems that there is something more in the atoms than ex- 
tension and motion ? Would he not even conclude : After 
all, reality cannot be constructed out of atoms, however 
simple the matter may at first have seemed ; in some form 
or other unity and spirituality must be assumed as original ; 
it is not possible to conceive them as the accidental results of 
the conjunction of atoms ? 

We might, by continuing these reflections, reach a view like 
that which Spinoza logically formulated in his Ethics : The 
world or reality is an absolutely unitary being, a substance ; 
the particular things, which at first seem independent, are 
in truth only dependent manifestations of the essence of the 
universal being. The All-One unfolds itself in a dual world 
of modifications, in a world of conscious processes and in 
a world of processes of motion ; between them there is uni- 
versal parallelism. The laws of nature, which govern each 
of the two worlds, and are conceivable by thought, are 
nothing but forms of the self-determination of the All-Real ; 
and the latter is not pushed or shoved from without by 
mechanical compulsion — for there is nothing outside of it 
that could push or shove it — but, yielding to the inner 
impulse or craving, it unfolds its essence in the fulness of 
reality and is itself its own and free cause. 

Had not Spinoza been too deeply absorbed in his anti- 
theological and antiteleological speculations, he would have 
made the following additions to these conceptions : Our 
knowledge of the universe is in the main a physical and as- 
tronomical knowledge, dealing with the outside of things. 
Their inner side, the world of consciousness, which our uni- 
versal metaphysical speculation discovered to be as far-reach- 
ing as the world of motion, is not so open to observation. 



THE RELATION OF MORALITY TO RELIGION 429 



Everybody has immediate knowledge of it only in so far as 
he experiences it in his own inner self. Reasoning by anal- 
ogy we infer from the bodily manifestations the existence of 
an inner life in the human and animal world. Assisted by 
the written and spoken word, we attain to some knowledge 
of the historical-mental life of humanity. Of a superhuman 
spiritual life we have absolutely no knowledge. We interpret 
the soul-life of animals by means of the lower manifestations 
of our own inner life. This is all we can do here. We read 
into the higher spiritual life conceived by metaphysics the 
highest phases of our being. In this sense we attribute to 
God, or the All-Real, wisdom, goodness, justice, and holiness. 
We do not intend thereby to define His essence theoretically, 
that is utterly impossible ; we shall not even dare to attribute 
reason and will to Him, reason and will are perhaps only 
earthly powers, just as sight and hearing are possibly merely 
earthly organs. We simply mean that we desire to imagine 
His essence in the form of the most perfect things of which 
we know. Art has always pictured God in human form, 
and will continue to do so; here we do not really intend 
to attribute such a form to God; we simply use the human 
countenance, the most perfect and important form of cor- 
poreality that we have, as a symbol of absolute perfection. So, 
too, we use the spiritual form of the most perfect humanity 
as a symbol of God's essence, which we cannot imagine and 
conceive. 

And in this we seem simply to be following the sugges- 
tions of reality itself. The earth, the only member of the 
universal system with which we are in any degree familiar, is 
predisposed to organic life, and tends to realize it. Organic 
life in turn aims at mental life, which reaches its goal in 
man. What Speculative Philosophy defined in logical con- 
cepts, modern biology attempts to represent as a process of 
historical evolution. If now we discard the false concepts of 
causality, according to which the cause pushes or forces the 



430 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

effect into existence, so to speak, and conceive it, with Lotze, 
as the spontaneous organization of all parts or members of 
reality into a unified system of motion or change, we can 
rightly say : The process of development of our planet, which 
culminates in human historical life, is moved or attracted by 
this its highest content as its goal. And in a similar man- 
ner, to follow Aristotle, the All is moved or attracted by God 
as its goal. 

Our conception of the moral laws as laws of nature, that is, 
laws of mental-historical life, suggests the same view. Since 
historical life is a part of universal life, the moral laws too 
must be based upon the essence of the universe, and give 
expression to it. Yes, we shall say, if human mental life is 
the highest and fullest development of inner life of which 
we know, then the moral laws are for us the highest forms 
of the self-determination of the All-Real. Here, too, the 
new biology serves as a bond of union between nature and 
history. This notion agrees with the old saying of Hera- 
clitus : All laws are nourished by one divine law. And 
Goethe says the same: 

So im Kleinen ewig, wie im Grossen 
Wirkt Natur, wirkt Menschengeist, und beide 
Sind ein Abglanz jenes Urlichts droben, 
Das unsichtbar alle Welt erleuchtet. 

In this sense we may conclude with Bacon : " Undoubtedly 
a superficial tincture of philosophy may incline the mind to 
atheism, yet a farther knowledge brings it back to religion." 1 

It is true, not all the philosophers mentioned above have 
accepted this world -formula, although no system has fewer 
opponents than this. But they all agree that reality is far 
from being simple and perfectly intelligible. They all 
ieclare, in some form or another, that the universe is a 
wonderful miracle, whose infinite depths even the profoundest 
human thoughts cannot fathom. And they all assert, each in 

1 [Advancement of Learning, Bk. I.} 



THE RELATION OF MORALITY TO RELIGION 431 

his own way, that it behooves man reverently to acknowledge 
the infinite and unfathomable. 

Forsooth, we must confess that, remarkable though the 
progress of science has been during the last few centuries, it 
has utterly failed to solve the great riddle of existence. In- 
deed, the mystery seems to have deepened and to have grown 
more wonderful. The more we study the universe, the more 
immeasurable seem its depths, the more inexhaustible the 
variety and wealth of its forms. How simple and intelligible 
was the world of Aristotle and St. Thomas ; into what incon- 
ceivable abysses astronomy and physics have since led us ! 
The billions of miles, years, and vibrations, with which these 
sciences reckon, carry the imagination to the dizzy edge of 
infinity. With what profound secrets of its organization, 
development, and existence biology sees herself confronted, 
now that she has learned to manipulate the microscope, and 
has called evolutionary science to her aid : back to what 
infinite beginnings progressive historical research stretches 
the life of man, which a few centuries ago seemed so clearly 
and distinctly bounded by the creation on the one side, and 
the judgment day on the other! So far is science from 
having transformed the world into a simple problem of 
arithmetic ! Science does not carry the thinking man to the 
end of things, she merely gives him an inkling of the illimit- 
ableness of the universe. She arouses in those who serve her 
with a pure heart, not pride, but feelings of deep humility 
and insignificance. These are the feelings which inspired 
Kant and Newton. Goethe, too, is full of this thought, which 
runs through his Prose Maxims (Spruche in Prosa) and his 
Conversations with Echermann : " The greatest blessing that 
can befall a thinking man is to fathom what can be fathomed 
and silently to adore the unfathomable." 

This feeling of awe in the presence of the Infinite from 
which our life springs, and into which it flows, forms the root 
of our religious conception of things. Reverence includes 



482 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

two elements, humility and trust; humility, the feeling of 
our own littleness and insignificance in the presence of the 
Infinite ; trust, the feeling that the Infinite is not merely an 
external transcendent force, but harbors and bears within its 
bosom our own life and striving as something that was created 
by it and cannot be lost. Of such feelings the heart-beats of 
religion consist. The ideas in which it clothes itself, the 
conceptual formulae in which philosophers and theologians 
attempt to comprehend the ideas, constitute the accidental 
and transitory element in religion. The value of these ideas 
and concepts consists in this : they are symbols in which 
feeling objectifies itself, and make religious fellowship and 
communion possible ; for no religion can exist except in a 
permanent social life. The individual participates in it as he 
participates in language and poetry, morals and law. — 
Besides, conceptual formulae have never exerted the greatest 
influence in the world ; art, which Goethe calls the mediator 
of the ineffable, and worship, with which the former is most 
intimately connected, have always been more important bearers 
and creators of religious life ; it is their function to express 
man's relation to the suprasensuous in a sensuous-visible 
manner. 

Now I believe that these feelings are qualities of human 
nature which will never be lost. The forms in which they 
are clothed will continue to change, their essence will remain. 
Whatever conceptions scientific research may form of reality, 
there will always be room for religious feeling. Religion will 
never die out ; it satisfies the innermost and deepest needs of 
the human soul. In order that it may not be stricken with 
pride and blindness in prosperity, the heart must turn heaven- 
ward, thankfully and joyfully accepting its happiness, not as 
something due to its own merit, but as a gift of grace. In 
the death of its hopes and plans it must remember that 
earthly things have no absolute worth ; in its absolute uncer- 
tainty concerning all human things, and in its ignorance of its 



THE RELATION OF MORALITY TO RELIGION 433 

own future, that it may not fall into baneful superstition, it 
needs the trust that whatever may come is meant as a bless- 
ing. It is surely not an accident that wherever this belief 
disappears superstition spreads. 

I also believe that the hearts of the best men always have 
been and always will be most susceptible to religious feeling. 
The purer and more beautiful a human soul, the more capable 
will it be of that reverence which constitutes the basis of reli- 
gion ; the more seriously and profoundly it regards life, the 
more humbly will it acknowledge how far short it falls of its 
ideals. The greater and freer the aspirations of a man, the 
stronger and more intense will be his faith in the ultimate 
victory of the good cause. 

4. But, it will be said, how does it happen that so many 
serious, able, and truth-loving men of our times not only stand 
outside of the church, but neither have nor even claim to have 
religion in any form ? Granting the truth of this statement — 
and I do not believe that we can doubt it — we may perhaps 
explain it as follows : First, the capacity for religion is not 
equally developed in all individuals. There are men in whom 
intellect or will so strongly preponderates, as to hinder the 
growth of the more refined and freer emotions. The story is 
told that a mathematician, after having listened to the read- 
ing of a poem, impatiently inquired : What does it prove ? 
His mind was so set upon demonstrations that there was no 
place nor interest in it for anything else; from nature he 
learned nothing except that she gave him problems to solve. 
Darwin seems to have passed through a similar experience. 
He tells us how his taste for poetry gradually disappeared 
Indeed, no one will wholly escape these influences who devotes 
his entire strength to a scientific task. Others are so deeply 
interested in practical problems as to care for nothing except 
what bears on these. They may be honest, efficient, and 
good men, but we cannot regard them as normally developed. 
An essential phase of their inner life seems to be wanting, 



434 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

that part of it, namely, by which human nature senses beauty, 
poetry, and freedom. We may perhaps say that our age is 
especially productive of men of this stamp. The division of 
labor, the mechanization of life, specialism, which constitute 
the glory of the present, apparently favor such a one-sided 
development. Many are proud of their limitations, not to say 
narrowness. The old Greek philosophers, the mediaeval 
scholars, the thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies, came into broader and freer touch with the universe 
than many of the investigators of the present, who begin to 
delve in some special field, and then, buried in their shafts, 
see nothing of heaven or of earth. Similar one-sidedness re- 
sults from the extreme devotion to an official or industrial 
sphere of activity, which the present demands. Life used to 
be simpler and more versatile, our relations to men and things 
were more varied, and hence fancy was more active, and the 
emotional life richer and more uniform. Specialism, and par- 
ticularly scientific specialism, encourages the feeling least 
favorable to religious life, that is, pride. I read somewhere 
that the salamanders living in the stalactitic caves of Car- 
niola have lost their vision, according to a well-known law of 
biology that organs which are not exercised disappear. It 
would seem that the science-specialists of our age often meet 
with a similar fate. Accustomed as they become, by constant 
practice, to the microscopic view of things, in philology and 
history as well as in natural science, they gradually diminish 
and finally lose entirely the power to see things in their great 
connections. And in the same ratio the tendency develops 
to regard all those who do not see the little things as stupid 
ignoramuses, and all those who strive to insert them into a 
larger whole, as meddlesome and fantastic bunglers. Is it 
not possible that the blind salamanders, groping about in 
the darkness of their caves, have the same contempt for those 
that see, and regard eyes as dilettantic organs of orientation ? 
Another circumstance, which causes a great deal of confu- 



THE RELATION OF MORALITY TO RELIGION 435 

sion and unhappiness, has the same effect : the contradiction 
between our professions and our real convictions. The creed 
contains much that sounds strange to us now, for example, 
the belief in miracles and demons. No one objected to these 
things as late as three hundred years ago. But with the 
triumph of the scientific mode of thought, which starts from 
the hypothesis of the universal reign of law, and then seeks 
to verify it in particular cases, the intellect has come to rebel 
somewhat strongly against miracles and magic. There may 
be more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in 
our philosophy, as witness the hypnotic phenomena, the reality 
of which we found it so hard to acknowledge. But the ten- 
dency to consider all phenomena as obeying the universal 
order of nature, as uniform occurrences, whose formula must 
be discovered, will not disappear again, unless science itself 
perishes. And no intelligent man would welcome such a 
calamity ; the decline of science would prepare the soil for 
the rank weed of superstition. We are here confronted with 
an alternative ; there are riddles, says science, which we can- 
not, as yet, solve, but there are no miracles, no occurrences 
which exclude, in principle, the possibility of a natural 
explanation. 

The Biblical miracles are no exception to this rule ; they 
belong to a category of world-views which has disappeared, 
and cannot long survive them. If we accept the Biblical 
miracles, we must also admit the possibility of modern 
miracles. If we have not the courage or find it impossible to 
accept the latter, at least in the Protestant world, we must 
draw the logical conclusion, and repudiate the former also. 
Protestant theology evidently appreciates the situation ; it at- 
tempts to set a limit to miracles or to discard them altogether, 
e.g., by interpreting them naturally or by explaining them 
away exegetically. This was the method of old rationalism, 
and it gave rise to many artificial and forced interpretations. 
Nevertheless, such a procedure was perhaps more honest and 



436 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

also more appropriate than a later one in which the attempt 
is made to complicate the question by all kinds of so-called 
speculative considerations or critical investigations of the 
sources, and so to avoid taking a definite stand in the matter. 
The impartial reader is apt to feel that such investigations 
are intended to confuse him and to conceal from him the 
author's failure to reach any decision whatever. 

I do not believe that the church can again win the confi- 
dence of thinking men until she decides to discard the belief 
in miracles. All these endeavors to make the miracles appear 
credible, simply serve, I fear, to increase the distrust. 

Besides, it may perhaps be shown that miracles not only 
contradict the scientific conceptions of our age, but also the 
spirit of our religious faith. They really belong to the poly- 
theistic stage in the evolution of theism ; gods work miracles, 
God works no miracles. According to the dogma of the 
church, God originally created all things out of nothing, and 
it is He who is constantly keeping them in existence ; they 
do not exist through themselves. That is, stated in different 
words : God alone is an independent being, all things are and 
exist, not in themselves, but in Him ; or according to Spinoza's 
formula : God is the substance, the things are modifications 
of His essence. Miracles presuppose a different relation of 
God to the world: God, a particular being by the side of 
other beings, upon which He occasionally acts arbitrarily, but 
which, in other respects, have their own reality. Miracles 
are exceptional effects, they are makeshifts, by which the 
world, which usually runs its own course, is corrected from 
without. Fetiches and gods only, can work by miracles. 
The all-powerful God of the first article, however, is an all- 
active God, and such a God works no miracles. Whoever 
takes monotheism seriously, whoever regards the difference 
between monotheism and polytheism not as a numerical 
difference, but as a difference in the divine essence, and does 
not look upon God as the only survivor of a great host of 



THE RELATION OF MORALITY TO RELIGION 437 

gods, whoever interprets monotheism to mean that God 
alone truly exists, cannot at the same time believe, without 
contradicting himself, that He reveals Himself in miracles 
and signs. And it is equally plain that theurgic practices 
of all kinds, aiming to produce changes in the course of 
nature, are necessarily connected with the polytheistic con- 
ception of the nature of the gods. 

Nor should we hide from ourselves the consequences of 
such an historico-critical " abstinence-policy " as was men- 
tioned before. The objection is raised to Strauss's criticism 
that it is dogmatic and not historical. Thus Bishop Mar- 
tensen of Zealand tells us in his Autobiography 1 that he 
noticed, immediately after reading the book for the first time, 
that " the Life of Jesus, which pretends to adhere to the prin- 
ciple of free thought, proceeds from a crass dogmatism : for 
Strauss boldly assumes that miracles are not possible." 
To be sure, if we should have to regard miracles as possible 
and true, until historical criticism had proved beyond a doubt, 
in case of each and every one of them, that the account of it 
was founded upon error, deception, or fraud, they would be 
safe for all time. We must not forget, however, that the 
same certainty would attach to the countless miracles which 
are mentioned in the literature of antiquity and the Middle 
Ages. They may all be defended against a " groundless nega- 
tive criticism " by the objection that their sources have not, as 
yet, been sufficiently investigated to compel us to abandon 
them ; and that it is crass dogmatism to assert their impos- 
sibility a priori : why, for example, should it be unthinkable 
that thunder and lightning, the flight of birds, and the condi- 
tion of entrails stand in some relation to human affairs, 
be it through supernatural intervention or through pre- 
established harmony ? 

It would, in my opinion, be no loss, at least to the Protes- 
tant church, should these things be entirely discarded. It may 

1 1., 142. 



438 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

be that miracles and signs were once needed to strengthen 
the faith of the church ; at present they merely discredit it. 
The story is told that F. A. Wolf once chose the New Testa- 
ment, the Gospel of St. Mark, as the subject of his lectures ; 
but when he came to the fifth chapter, to the story of the cast- 
ing out of devils in the country of the Gadarenes, and the 
events following it, he laid the book aside forever. Why did 
he not find the same fault with the ghost-stories and the 
fables in Homer? Surely because he did not have to be- 
lieve them, because he was allowed to take them for what 
they were worth. The Gospels certainly contain wonderfully 
serious and important matters, much more important matters 
than the works of Homer ; but Wolf could not see them on 
account of these miserable Gadarene swine. For another 
person Balaam's ass or a similar calamity proves to be the 
stumbling-block. He is taught in the schools to take such 
things literally ; the miracles are perhaps emphasized as 
especially important facts and as corroborating the truth of 
all the other contents. As soon as he escapes from the 
school-room, and his impulse to believe and to doubt is no 
longer subjected to compulsion, he revenges himself by repu- 
diating these books once and for all ; to his own detriment 
of course, but not wholly through his own fault. How 
wonderful, deep, poetically affecting, are the stories with 
which legend has surrounded the birth of Jesus : the annun- 
ciation, the appearance of the angels among the shepherds, 
and the gloria in excelsis, the star, which appeared to the 
wise men of the East, and showed them the way to the 
new-born babe, the Savior of the world, the flight to Egypt ; 
how full of meaning is the story of the temptation, of the 
feeding of the multitude, of the catching of the fishes. But 
who can endure a sermon that uses these narratives to con- 
tradict rationalism, and to prove their literal possibility ana 
truth ? Demonstrations are absolutely out of place here ; 
where these stories are accepted with the old faith, proof 



THE RELATION OF MORALITY TO RELIGION 439 

is superfluous ; where the faith is gone, such arguments 
will never bring it back, they will simply destroy the poetical 
effect, and produce distrust, which will spread from point 
to point until it has finally eaten away all faith and all 
religion. 

If, in addition to this, the church undertakes to defend the 
creed by outward means, if the worldly powers aid her therein 
to their utmost, and if rewards are bestowed upon ostensible 
orthodoxy, and punishments inflicted upon its opposite, — 
then the sincerest natures will be the first to assume an 
attitude of decided hostility, they will look upon the creed 
as the Caudine Forks through which the path leads to ap- 
pointment and promotion, as the praemium servitutis. History 
shows it ; for example, the history of the forties and fifties ; 
but who heeds her warnings ? It seems to be fated that all 
the absurdities of humanity should be produced anew with 
every generation. So, too, the attempt is periodically made to 
bolster up religion by means of outward force. And the con- 
sequences are always the same ; human nature rebels against 
what is forced upon it, and philosophers assert that such 
methods are absolutely contrary to human nature. If the ex- 
periment could be made to employ force, not in behalf of, but 
against religion — an experiment which the first French revo- 
lution actually tried, and which presumably will be tried again 
in some form or other — it would be found how deeply re- 
ligion is rooted in the heart of man. 

5. Let me also consider briefly the relation between the 
belief in immortality and morality. It has long been believed 
and is still claimed at the present time that the belief in im- 
mortality, in the sense that death is followed by another life, 
is the keystone of all morality. If this life were the end of 
everything, virtue would be an empty dream ; then it would 
be the part of wisdom to enjoy the moment. 

According to the view herein presented, morality as a 
acience does not depend upon this belief. The latter is of 



440 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

great importance to conduct, but not to moral philosophy. 
Ethics will not change a single proposition, whether there be 
a life after death or not. The moral laws are natural laws 
of the human historical life existing at this time and upon 
this earth. Should this life be the preparation for another 
life, we could not give the slightest indication of how to pre- 
pare ourselves for it except by filling our present life with a 
moral content. And should this earthly life be the whole of 
life, the same course would be advisable and necessary ; nor 
would such a life need another as a reward, it would be a 
sufficient reward in itself. 

And I should like to add that it does not seem advisable 
from & pedagogical and practical standpoint, to make the truth 
or the value of the moral laws dependent upon so uncertain a 
thing as the belief in a future life. For it cannot be denied 
that this belief is becoming more and more unsettled in our 
times ; and the future will hardly succeed in strengthening it. 
It is being undermined by the increasing spread of the scien- 
tific and anthropological mode of thought. The conception of 
a life after death, as anthropology shows us, is a dream which 
all peoples have dreamed in infinitely different forms. The 
Indians and Esquimaux dreamed of hunting and fishing 
grounds, the old Germans of battles and drinking bouts, the 
Eastern Mohammedans of beautiful women and beautiful gar- 
dens : everywhere the imagination creates a future world, in 
which the will realizes its desire for happiness. 

Then I should continue as follows. Even though a tem- 
poral life after death were a dream, that would not make the 
belief in immortality a wholly vain illusion ; we have here in 
sensuous garb a possible and perhaps necessary thought, the 
thought to which the Kantian philosophy leads : The temporal 
life is the phenomenal form of a life which is eternal as 
such. 

Consider : what is time ? The form of reality as such ? 
If so, to be in time would be the condition of being real. In 



THE RELATION OF MORALITY TO RELIGION 441 

thafc case, however, we should have to say further : To be in 
the present is the condition of being real ; for that which is 
not in the present, is necessarily either past and hence no 
longer existent, or future and hence not yet existent ; there- 
fore that only is real which is in the present. — But note the 
consequence : absolutely nothing can be in the present ; at 
the moment in which being is predicated of it, it has already 
passed with the moment ; the present is not a space, but a 
point. To be in the present can therefore not be the con- 
dition of being real ; if reality is not to disappear entirely, 
even the past must in some way be real, and hence also the 
future. — Perhaps after we have reflected upon this, it will 
be easier to grant : To be in time is by no means the condi- 
tion of being real, or, to speak with Kant : Time is not a 
form of reality, but a form of our sense-perception. That 
which appears in our consciousness, which is bound to this 
form of intuition, as a process extending through time, is in 
and for itself a timeless existence, eternal. Every moment of 
reality, hence also a human life, has absolute or eternal exist- 
ence in reality. It is irrational to think : Death ends all, for 
then life is gone and annihilated, and it is just as though it 
had never been. A life can in no wise be destroyed by death ; 
what has once been experienced is an eternal and indelible 
constituent of reality, never more to be erased or altered. It 
is a foolish doubt which Karl Moor expresses with the pistol 
in his hand : " If the paltry pressure of this paltry thing 
makes the wise man and the fool, the coward and the hero, 
the noble and the villain, equal — " That cannot be ; death 
severs the thread of the earthly life, but the content of life 
can neither be altered nor annihilated by it ; reality is eternal 
in its essence, nothing that is real can, to quote Angelus 
Silesius, ever perish and cease to be. 1 
Are these useless, abstract reflections ? Perhaps not alto- 

1 Weil die Geschopfe gar in Gottes Wort bestehn, 
Wie konnen sie denn je zerwerden und vergehn ? 



442 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

gether. Whenever we appear before men, even though it 
be but for a moment, it is not immaterial to us what pic- 
ture they form of us; we know that it will hardly abide 
with them for a second, then to be forgotten forever, and 
yet we take care that it may not be a repulsive or ugly pic- 
ture. Countless human beings have lived and died thinking 
of the picture which future generations will form of them ; 
and should we then care nothing for the picture which is 
impressed, not upon a momentary consciousness, not upon 
the memory of the succeeding generations, but, as it were, 
upon the very essence of reality for all eternity ? And not a 
picture merely but rather our very being ? Should we, seek- 
ing only the enjoyment of the moment, be careless whether 
our being manifests itself forever in the eternal reality as a 
useless, empty, and contemptible, or as a beautiful and good 
thing ? 

But the world has no consciousness, and I myself will have 
no consciousness ; and what do I care for an existence in 
which neither I nor any one else is to have consciousness ? 

Well, who says that reality is without consciousness ? May 
not the All-Real have an absolute consciousness of itself, of 
its essence ? Surely the thought which so many of the pro- 
foundest thinkers of all ages regarded as a necessary thought, 
cannot be an absurd one. The divine consciousness will be 
different from the earthly-temporal consciousness of man, and 
we cannot conceive it, imagine it, or describe it. But who 
dares to assert that nothing can exist except what he can 
imagine ? — And who will claim that the individual beings, 
who here have a temporal consciousness, could not also 
possess an eternal consciousness ? Why should not a being 
which is conscious of its inner life as a process extended in 
time, also be able to become aware of it sub specie ceterni- 
tatis? Do we know how temporal consciousness arises, and 
how it can exist ? 

And we might point out how consciousness is modified with 



THE RELATION OF MORALITY TO RELIGION 443 

advancing age. Youth lives in the future. But the past 
gradually expands, and old age finds rest in the contem- 
plation of the past as the true reality, as something no longer 
subject to change. When we look back upon the past, what 
is it that determines our judgment of the value of life ? The 
pleasure which it yielded, or the fact that it was a worthy 
and a righteous life ? Christian moralists constantly exhort 
us to remember death and to be mindful of eternity, and 
to act and to live as though we were in the presence of 
death. Indeed, this advice is as sound as it is effective; 
death is really, as it has been called, a good professor moralium. 
The time will come for you, whoever you may be and what- 
ever you may think and believe, — even though not until your 
life is drawing to a close, — when it will be absolutely im- 
material to you what pleasures you have enjoyed in this 
world, how much honor and wealth you have won, how far 
you have succeeded in asserting your claims ; the time will 
come, even though not until you are on your death-bed, when 
one thing alone will not be immaterial to you : whether you 
have honestly done your work in this world, however great 
or small it may have been, as a righteous man, whether you 
have fought the battle of life as a brave and faithful soldier. 
Yes, ask yourself, and honestly answer the question, What is 
it that really pains you now when you look back upon your 
past ? Is it the sorrows you have suffered, is it the evils, 
the injustice, the losses which you have borne ? Or is it the 
sins you have committed, the wrongs you have inflicted upon 
others, the injury you have done yourself, contrary to your 
better nature ? And what is it that makes you happy, what 
adds value to your life in your eyes ? The pleasures and 
good meals ? These are gone and will never more delight 
you ! But the noble and honest deeds you have wrought, the 
good you have done to others at the sacrifice of your own 
inclinations, — these are the things which you still cherish and 
hold dear. Does this not express an immediate conviction on 



444 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

your part that the past is not absolutely vain and unreal, 
but permanent and real ? for what do we care for the 
non-existent ? — Why, you say, it exists in memory. — Well, 
suppose being in memory were the real being, suppose all 
recollection formed a part of the absolute memory, or rather 
of the absolute consciousness of God ? Then life, clearly 
seeing itself in the light of the eternal self-consciousness of 
God, would be engraven upon the background of eternal reality 
for all eternity. 1 

If we were to seek for terms to express the faith of Chris- 
tianity in philosophical language, we should, it seems to me, 
be forced to adopt a similar formula. The Scriptures tell us 
that the eternal life is not a sensuous-temporal life, but a 
suprasensuous-eternal life ; that it does not consist of eating 
and drinking, but of an unspeakable glory and blessedness, 
or its opposite ; that the end of this earthly life destroys the 
possibility of a change of its essence and hence of its state, 
which means that no life in time will follow, for a life in time 
without change is something that cannot possibly be con- 
ceived. To be sure, faith does not rest here, in these abstract 
and negative expressions, which strip off the sensuous and the 
temporal ; it soon clothes the thought of a non -sensuous-time- 
less life in the forms and colors of the sensuous-temporal 
life ; it speaks of a city of God, measures its length and its 
breadth, builds the streets of gold and the gates of pearls, 
makes the saints, clothed in white raiment and carrying palms 
in their hands, sing songs of praise to God and the Lamb ; 
while hell is filled by the imagination with repulsive and 

1 The mind which is immortal makes itself 
Requital for its good or evil thoughts — 
Is its own origin of ill and end — 
And its own place and time : its innate sense, 
When stripp'd of this mortality, derives 
No color from the fleeting things without, 
But is absorb'd in sufferance or in joy, 
Born from the knowledge of its own desert. 

Btkow'b Manfred. 



THE RELATION OF MORALITY TO RELIGION 445 

horrible phantoms. These are images, and yet not merely 
images. It is peculiar to faith that it raises itself above the 
sensuous world, and yet remains in it and clings to it ; what 
it throws away with the right hand, it again picks up with 
the left. The entire church creed moves along this boundary 
between the sensuous and the suprasensuous, between imagin- 
ation and thought. On the one hand, God receives no qual- 
ities of sensuous-temporal finitude : he is infinite, omnipresent, 
eternal, unchangeable ; and then again he possesses the 
qualities of finite beings : he thinks, feels, wills, acts, suffers, 
is sorrowful and glad. The polytheistic religions naively 
attributed sensuous-human characteristics to the gods ; this 
gave them their aesthetic perfection, which we cannot help 
admiring in the Greek gods even to this day. Christianity 
assumed a different relation to the world of sense from the 
very beginning. Nor must it be forgotten that it entered a 
world in which the great division between thought and imag- 
ination, which were originally one, had long ago been made ; 
Xenophanes and Parmenides, Plato and Aristotle, had not 
lived in vain. But it did not always adhere to the division ; 
the pseudo-science of the old dogmatics constantly attempted 
again to unite imagination and thought into one system. 
Will the time ever come which will recognize the futility of 
these endeavors, and decide to recognize the difference be- 
tween thoughts and pictures, concepts and symbols ? Will 
the time ever come which will have the courage to confess 
that the formulae of the creed are symbols, and no more 
adequate definitions of the divine essence and activity than 
the pictures of Raphael are portraits of the Holy Family ? 
Have the latter no value in case tbey are not exact likenesses? 
What would be the result if a pseudo-science should endeavor 
to prove the portrait-character of these pictures ? Would 
not the indignation aroused by such a procedure, vent itself 
against the pictures themselves, especially if they were placed 
under the protection of the authorities ? 



446 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

6. The foregoing conception of the relation between 
morality and religion has been criticised by Gizycki in a 
review of this work which I mentioned above. 1 It seems to 
him that I underrate a valuable, indeed the most valuable, 
quality of a man of science, " intellectual honesty." " There 
really are," he says, " some intellectually honest men who 
strive after the truth with their whole souls, who desire to 
possess a faithful picture of the world, and therefore do not 
allow themselves to believe anything that is not immediately 
self-evident, or cannot be deduced with logical necessity from 
such absolutely certain principles." The above view, he 
believes, does not do these men justice. He mentions a 
number of such unbelievers, and compares them with others 
who combine great moral defects with much religion. Lom- 
broso has shown in his work on the criminal that few 
criminals are unbelievers. Gizycki considers the facts ad- 
duced by Lombroso as very suggestive. I confess that I do 
not find them so to any great extent. That criminals are 
superstitious is not surprising; for there is a close connec- 
tion between crime, intellectual decay, and insanity. It is 
much more surprising that Lombroso, and following him 
Gizycki, should so naively confuse superstition with religion. 
— But as for those sincere and honest men who have no reli- 
gion, I have of course never dreamed of denying either their 
existence or their integrity. I have even attempted to explain 
their lack of religion by their honesty. Because religion is 
so often confused and adulterated with superstition, religiosity 
with hypocrisy, sincere natures are repelled, and so repudiate 
all " faith," all attempts to transcend the facts adduced by 
scientific research. I did not reproach them for this, but, 
on the other hand, I cannot follow Gizycki, and regard their 
attitude as deserving especial praise. Nay, I cannot help 
regarding it as a kind of narrowness, particularly when it 
claims to be the only proper and legitimate attitude. 

1 See p. 283. 



THE RELATION OF MORALITY TO RELIGION 447 

Now, is it really true, are there really people who strictly 
adhere to the principle, " not to believe anything that is not 
immediately self-evident, or cannot be deduced with logical 
necessity from such absolutely certain principles ? " Do not 
these persons also form notions of the future, either of their 
own or of the future in general, which partake of the nature 
of faith ? Do not they, too, make use of unverified elements 
to construct their conceptions of reality ? Gizycki quotes a 
passage from an American author in his Moral Philosophy i 1 
" When a man believes things simply because Christ or the 
Bible says so, without knowing other reasons, then, even 
though his belief be true, the truth itself, which he possesses, 
becomes his heresy; — it is wrong to accept the Bible with- 
out investigation, even if every sentence were literally true." 
— Does this rigid rule apply only to the Bible or also to other 
books, for example, to the collected works of Lombroso ? I 
believe that it could do no harm to re-examine the generaliza- 
tion that most criminals are very religious. 

But that is most likely not our author's meaning. The 
rule does not really apply to the world of empirical facts, in 
which we are obviously constantly compelled to make assump- 
tions without ourselves verifying them, but to the world of 
religious faith, to the faith in " transcendent " things. At the 
beginning of this chapter I defined religion provisionally as 
faith in the transcendent. Gizycki says that he does not 
know what I mean by the transcendent, and that he has not 
been able to form a clear notion of it from my remarks. It 
seems to me that I am not altogether to blame for this. To 
be sure, I did not give a description of the transcendent, and 
I do not intend to give one now ; I believe that Kant's Criti- 
que has put an end to such attempts : only the empirical world 
is an object of description and of knowledge. But I am also 
convinced with Kant, and I might add, with Plato and Spinoza 

1 [P. 457. The author is Stanton Coit, Intellectual Honesty in the Pulpit, New 
York, 1888.— Tr] 



448 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

and Schopenhauer and a thousand others, that the world of 
our experience, or nature, is not the world in and for itself, 
and that our science does not exhaust reality. But what 
is reality in itself ? I do not know ; but it does not seem 
absurd to me to think that it bears a closer relation to my 
own inner experiences than may at first sight appear to one 
looking at it from the outside, with the eyes of the physicist 
All philosophers, the materialists alone excepted, are agreed 
upon this point ; in addition to physical being they attribute 
to reality a metaphysical essence ; they merely differ in their 
interpretation of the latter. This thought of an Absolute 
being becomes faith when it is at the same time conceived as 
absolute goodness, as a world of ideas, as a divine essence, as 
a kingdom of grace, as a moral world-order, or whatever we 
may choose to call it. 

And for such a belief Gizycki demands a theoretically 
satisfactory proof; otherwise it must be rejected as super- 
stition. Gizycki says that my theological reflections sur- 
prise him. Well, I confess that his demands, coming, as 
they do, one hundred years after the establishment Ji the 
Kantian philosophy in Germany, surprise me. Or has Kant 
become antiquated, has his philosophy been overthrown and 
replaced, say by the advance of the natural sciences or 
by the system of the " philosophy of reality " 1 - If that is 
Gizycki's opinion, we are unquestionably pretty far apart, too 
far apart to be able to settle our differences here. 

But I should also like to add : Gizycki seems to be afraid 
that I may, after all, attempt to base my ethics upon theology 
or metaphysics, and that is perhaps the ultimate ground of 
his opposition. Such a thing is really far from my thoughts. 
I am as convinced as he is that morality can and must be 
explained purely immanently. But it may, perhaps, serve 
as a starting-point and support for metaphysics. And this 

1 [ Wirklichlceitsphilosophie, the name under which German Positivism is 
known See Weber-Thilly, p. 583, note 1. — Tr.] 



THE RELATION OF MORALITY TO RELIGION 449 

is precisely what I believe. If we wish to form a final con- 
ception of the nature of things in general, we shall have to 
take into consideration not only the facts of physics and 
astronomy, but also the facts of our inner life, and especially 
those with which moral philosophy is concerned. I have 
repeatedly emphasized the truth that the moral laws are 
likewise laws of nature, in the sense that a healthy and 
happy life is possible only where they determine the will. 
Gizycki calls this fact, which he recognizes as such, 1 a 
simple and self-evident fact, almost a tautologous truth. I 
regard it as a very suggestive truth : if the moral law is a 
biological law, then " unfeeling, involuntary nature " is 
brought into a very remarkable relation with mental-histor- 
ical life. 

It has always seemed strange to me that the thinkers who 
so solemnly declare that human life is merely a piece 01 
universal nature, do not see the necessary consequence of 
their view : namely, that the historical life of humanity may 
in turn be used in interpreting the nature which produces it. 
For, on their hypothesis, the logical and moral laws also form 
a part of the universal order of nature, and the materialist, 
too, will have to regard them as such. He explains thought 
and conscience by the mechanics of the brain, that is, he 
assumes the possibility of such an explanation; hence the 
mechanism functions, at least in part, as a logical and moral 
machine. Is n't that surprising ? 

How would the nature of things have to be constituted in 
order to impress the " philosophers of reality " as remarkable ? 
If immediately after each bad deed, the sinner were to receive 
from an invisible power a series of painful electrical shocks, 
corresponding to the degree of his guilt ; and if every good 
deed were, in the same way, immediately followed by its re- 
ward, then would they regard the phenomenon as strange and 
significant? Well, such an arrangement might seem sum- 

1 Mord Philosophy, §§ 11 f. 



450 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

ciently obvious to a childish intellect ; the primitive mind has 
always imagined that every misdeed is followed by a misfor- 
tune, as a punishment, not of nature, but of the supernatural 
power of the fetiches or the gods. The thinking man, on the 
other hand, would find it difficult to become reconciled to such 
a demoniacal, spectral arrangement ; he will regard a natural 
and uniform relation between reality and the good as more 
appropriate. Well, such a relation actually exists in the 
world ; that which the moral instinct of man has from time 
immemorial designated as the good or the bad, is found to be 
uniformly conducive to preservation and happiness, or, con- 
versely, to cause destruction, pain, and discord. Besides, it 
has not escaped healthy common-sense that God's justice 
does not assume the form of demoniacal intervention: The 
mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceeding fine. 

Is the relation here spoken of self-evident ? Is the pro- 
position that virtue preserves life, that vice destroys it, a 
tautologous proposition, equivalent to the statement that 
preservative qualities preserve life, and destructive qualities 
destroy it? — We cannot compel any one to meditate upon 
these matters. But I believe there will always be men who 
will ponder over things more than the " philosophy of reality " 
may be pleased to regard as good. Nay, I am inclined to be- 
lieve that philosophy will, in the course of its development, 
come to view this connection between morality and life as the 
most remarkable and significant fact of all, from which all 
attempts to explain the essence of reality must take their be- 
ginning. Of course, it will never be possible to give a com- 
plete theoretical explanation of the world with this as our 
starting-point. We are simply afforded a glimpse into the 
ultimate connections of things. And so the ultimate relation 
to reality will always remain for us a belief, not an intuition. 

I certainly prize intellectual honesty very highly ; but 1 
cannot convince myself that it compels me to say that faith 
and religion are always a mistake in man, either of the head 



THE RELATION OF MORALITY TO RELIGION 451 

or of the heart ; that he is either incapable or unwilling to 
see things as they are. This view held by many " philoso- 
phers of reality " is, however, not Gizycki's : he regards re- 
ligion as something wholly indifferent and accidental. I, on 
the other hand, believe religion belongs to the normal func- 
tions of human nature, and that its absence always indicates 
a disturbance, either in the individual life or in the life of 
society. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE FREEDOM OF THE WILLI 

1. We now enter upon the discussion of a problem which 
likewise borders on ethics and metaphysics : the problem of 
free will. 

Let me discriminate, at the outset, between two senses of 
the word : we may speak of freedom of the will in a psycho- 
logical or in a metaphysical sense. The former means the 
ability to cause decisions and acts by one's own will 
(freedom of choice) ; the latter means that the will or the 
particular decisions themselves have no cause. 

In popular speech, the term free will is employed solely in the 
first sense. An act is called free when the will of the agent 

1 [For the psychology of willing, see : Wundt, Physiologische Psychologie, chaps. 
XV., XX., XXI , XXII. ; Hoffding, Psychology, VII. ; Baldwin, Feeling and Will, 
Part IV. ; Mental Development, chap. XIII. ; James, Psychology, chap. XXVI. ; 
Sully, Human Mind, vol. II., Part V. ; Ladd, Descriptive Psychology, chaps. XI., 
XXVI. ; Jodl, Lehrbuch, chaps. VII., XII. ; Kulpe, Die Lehre vom Willen in der 
neuern Psychologie, Phil. Studien, V. — Riehl, Der philosophische Kriticismus, vol. n., 
Part II., pp. 216-280; Sidgwick, Methods, Bk. I., chap. V.; Baumann, Wundfs 
Lehre vom Willen, Phil. Monatshefte, vol. XVII., pp. 558-602 ; XIX., 354-374 ; 
James, The Dilemma of Determinism, Unitarian Review, September, 1 884, also in 
his The Will to Believe ; Martineau, Study of Religion, vol. II., Book III., pp. 196- 
324; Green, Prolegomena, Bk. I., chap. III.; Bk. II., chap. I.; Stephen, The 
Science oj. Ethics, pp. 264-294 ; Munsterberg, Die Willenshandlung ; Fouille'e, La 
liberie" et determinisme ; Le sentiment de V effort, Revue Phil., 1890; Sigwart, Der 
Begriff des Wollens und sein Verhaltniss zum Begriff der Causal itdt ; Steinthal, 
Allgemeine Ethik, pp. 312-382; Wundt, Ethik, Part III., chap. I., 1, 2, 3; Frank 
Thilly, Freedom of the Will, Phil. Review, vol. III., pp. 385-411 ; Fowler and 
Wilson, Principles, Part II, chap. IX. ; Hyslop, Elements, chaps. IV., V. ; 
Mackenzie, Manual, chap. VIIL; Seth, Ethical Principles, Part HL, chap 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 453 

is its immediate cause ; determined, when it is caused by an 
external force, that is, either directly, by physical compul- 
sion, or indirectly, by threats, misrepresentations, etc. In the 
latter case, the will is really not the cause of the decision ; 
but here there is a wide range between gentle persuasion and 
irresistible compulsion, and therefore a corresponding grad- 
ual transition from complete freedom to complete deter- 
minism. A person remains in a room because his business 
keeps him there, or because he feels no inclination to leave, 
or because he has been promised something to stay, or because 
he will be punished if he leaves, or because a sentry is posted 
at the door who will shoot him if he goes out, or because the 
door is barred and he himself is bound hand and foot. Here 
we have a graduated scale from perfect freedom to absolute 
compulsion. 

That there is psychological freedom has never been doubted. 
But whether the will can be free in the other sense is a 
subject of endless debate. It is contended by the defenders of 
metaphysical freedom that the will itself is not determined by 
causes, but is the final uncaused cause of its decisions, that 
it is absolutely independent of the world-process, which is 
subject to the causal law. Here again there are two possibil- 
ities. We may, first, assume that the will of a man is an 
agens ; which though itself uncaused and standing outside of 
the causal nexus, nevertheless acts according to immanent 
law, in the sense that its effects follow from its nature. So 
Schopenhauer : 1 operari sequitur esse ; but the esse, the will 
itself, has no cause, or is, so to say, its own cause (causa 
8ui). Or, secondly, we may assume that the particular acts 
of will are uncaused as such, that each enters the world as an 
absolutely new element, in no wise determined by the previous 
course of outer and inner events. On the latter hypothesis, 

1 [Die Freiheit des Willens. See R. Penzig, Arthur Schopenhauer und die 
menschliche Willensfreiheit, which contains also a brief historical review of the free- 
will question. — TrJ 



454 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

the will would be, if we could still speak of a will here, an 
absolutely lawless agens. 1 

The problem of the metaphysical freedom of the will is 
still regarded by some as one of the greatest and most difficult 
problems of philosophy. I do not regard it as such. It is a 
problem that owes its origin to certain conditions, and will 
disappear with these conditions : it belongs to philosophizing 
theology, or scholasticism. 

The problem did not really exist for Greek philosophy ; 
only occasionally was it touched upon ; man was impartially 
conceived as a part of the whole of nature, from which he 
sprang, and to whose universal law — • so far as Greek phil- 
osophy was familiar with this notion — he remained subject. 2 

The philosophy of the church, on the other hand, which 
grew out of the dogmas, considered it a problem of great 
difficulty. 3 

Two things are settled : God created man by an act of his 
will, hence man must have been good originally. On the 
other hand, it is no less certain that man, as we know him, 
is by nature bad. This second fact is the presupposition of 
the fundamental dogma of salvation, which, again, assumes 
the necessity of the church. But how did evil come into the 
world ? Through God, the Creator ? That is impossible. God 
is good and almighty, and hence his works as such are neces- 
sarily good. Evil then must have come into the world after 
he created it. Not from the outside, for outside of God and 
the world there is nothing; hence through the creatures 
themselves. But how can a creature become other than it 
is, other than the Creator made it ? .Here the metaphysical 
freedom of the will presents itself as a solution. God has 
given man a free will in order that he may of his own accord 
decide in favor of the good ; without free choice there can be 

1 [See Martineau, supra; Dr. Ward, Dublin Review, July, 187*. — Tr.] 

2 [See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book III. — Tr.] 

3 [Cf. Augustine and the Pelagian controversy, Thoma» Aquinas, Dims 
Scotus, Luther, Calvin. — Tr.1 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 455 

no morality. But freedom is, in the nature of things, the cap- 
acity to turn to either side. Now man made use of his free- 
dom by deciding in favor of the evil : Adam sinned by his 
disobedience, and with him fell the entire race. Hence evil 
came into the world, not through God, but through man, 
although with God's sanction. 

Whether this solution removes the difficulty need not be 
decided here. The question might be asked : Can a creator 
really give such freedom to a creature, that is, the capacity to 
will or to do anything with absolute independence ? Will not 
every act and every decision follow necessarily from the 
nature of the creature ? And then is not the cause of its 
nature also the cause of all its actions ? But if the reply 
should be given that the decision does not follow as a con- 
sequence from the nature of the creature, then indeed we 
have absolute fatalism. — Besides, purely theological objections 
may still be urged against such a solution, for example, ob- 
jections based upon the omnipotence and omniscience of God, 
or upon the necessity of God's grace and man's natural in- 
capacity for good. Calvin and Luther deny the freedom of 
the will, the former in his doctrine of predestination, whose 
logical consistency we are forced to admit, the latter in his 
teaching of the incapacity or " unfreedom " of the natural man 
to choose the good. The entire subject is, therefore, in the 
words of Ovid, instabilis tellus, inabilis unda. 

Modern philosophy, which is an outgrowth of the new 
natural sciences, has not, it is true, solved the problem ; 
it has simply dropped it. The conception of the unity 
and uniformity of nature is one of the fundamental con- 
ceptions of the modern era, one that took root immediately 
after it was first enunciated by the great thinkers of the 
seventeenth century. And our interpretation of psychical 
processes has also been gradually determined by this concep- 
tion as the regulative principle. Hobbes regards the mental 
processes themselves as motion ; hence metaphysical freedom 



456 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

of the will is as impossible as the creation of motion or 
matter out of nothing. On the other hand, freedom in the 
psychological sense is a self-evident fact. He sums up his 
view in an epigrammatic formula, which may indeed be termed 
the last word in this controversy : Libertas non est volendi, 
sed quae volumus faciendi; we have the will to act, and this 
we call freedom, but not the will to will. Spinoza, whose 
system leaves absolutely no room for isolated or exempt ele- 
ments of reality, speaks of the soul as a spiritual automaton 
(automaton spirituale) . Leibniz and Wolff vainly endeavor 
to purge themselves of the charge of determinism by distin- 
guishing between physical and mathematical necessity. Kant 
and Schopenhauer, to be sure, speak of an " intelligible " free- 
dom ; but in the empirical world, which all human beings call 
the real world, the law of causality rules. The occurrences 
of the psychical world take place according to the natural 
laws governing it, with the same necessity as those in the 
physical world. 1 It is merely accidental, that is, owing to 
their great complexity, that they cannot be calculated or 
foretold, which, however, likewise holds true of many pro- 
cesses in the physical world ; for example, of meteorological 
and physiological occurrences. Theoretically, nothing stands 
in the way ; a perfect intellect, capable of taking into account 
all the necessary facts, would understand the acts of a man as 
perfectly as the movements of the planets. The physiologists 
of our times are still further influenced in their acceptance of 
the causal dependence of all mental processes, by the prevail- 
ing view that the psychical processes must be conceived as 
concomitant phenomena of physiological processes in the brain 
and nervous system. If now the law of causality is absolutely 
valid for the latter as physical processes, it must also be as- 
sumed to apply to the concomitant mental processes. If the 
proposition is true that organic bodies which are absolutely 
identical will respond to the same stimuli in exactly the same 

1 [See also Green, supra. — T*.] 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 457 

manner, then the proposition also holds that souls exactly 
alike in nature and character, inclinations and moods, expe- 
riences and ideas, will respond to the same stimuli in the 
same way. And similarly : If the law of causality applies to 
transmission of bodily characteristics, it will apply no less to 
the psychical predispositions which depend upon the former. 

2. Whatever view we may take of these ultimate specula- 
tions, the facts will hardly allow us to doubt the causal 
determination of the nature and development of the will, and 
hence of action. Indeed, no one really doubts it, no one 
believes that the human will is an ens a se, or that, a certain 
nature and certain conditions being given, a certain stimulus 
will sometimes produce one act, and sometimes another. 

Let me indicate the facts, which force themselves upon our 
attention. 

How does a man, a human will, come into the world ? So 
far as we know, his life begins in time. Is the beginning 
without cause, or is it the result of his own choice ? Hardly ; 
man, like the animal, is conceived and produced by parents ; 
he resembles them in body and in soul, he inherits their temper- 
ament, their desires, their sensuous-intellectual powers, as well 
as their bodily characteristics. He receives all the physical- 
spiritual qualities of the people from whom he descends, as 
his natural endowment. His sex, too, which exercises such 
a potent influence upon his entire life, is determined, by what 
causes we do not know, yet no one will claim that it is the 
result of his own choice. Hence nothing in the origin of man 
indicates that he constitutes an exempt territory, an enclave 
in the kingdom of nature, which is not subject to her laws. 

These predispositions or tendencies are then developed 
under the determining influences of environment, of natural 
and, above all, human environment. The child is educated 
by the family in the form of life peculiar to his people. He 
acquires their language, and with the language a more or less 
complete system of concepts and judgments. He is educated 



458 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

into the customs and habits of his nation, by which the actions 
and judgments of most persons are governed during their 
entire lives. He is sent to school, and here obtains the gen- 
eral culture of the age ; he is taken into the church, where 
he receives further training, which, positively or negatively, 
exercises a permanent influence upon his inner life. He is 
finally dismissed from the home and the school, but only to 
be subjected to the influence of a new educative force, — 
society. The individual is also born into society; there is, 
as a rule, little room for choice ; he belongs to a certain class 
by descent and, as a rule, for life. Society incessantly works 
upon him ; it tells him in words and in deeds what is right 
and what is wrong, what is proper and improper, what is at- 
tractive and repulsive. It assigns to him his tasks according 
to the law of supply and demand. Each man receives his 
instructions from his times. The builder does not build as 
he chooses, but as the age chooses : in the fourteenth cen- 
tury, in the Gothic style ; in the sixteenth, Renaissance ; in 
the eighteenth, Rococo. Nor does the scholar choose his 
scientific task, his age selects it for him : in the fourteenth 
century, a logical disquisition on substance and accident ; in 
the sixteenth, Latin verses, modelled after Yirgil ; in the 
eighteenth, a mathematical-physical investigation, or a treat- 
ise on the harmfulness of superstition. In our days he makes 
an historical examination of a lost Greek writer or digs up 
prehistoric ruins. 

There seems to be no break in the chain : nation and age, 
parents and teachers, environment and society, determine 
the predisposition and development, rank and life-problems, of 
each individual human being. He is the product of the col- 
lective body from which he springs. Just as the twig on a 
tree does not owe its form and function to its will, but to the 
whole body on which it grows, so a man does not exist prior 
to himself, as it were, and determine his form and lot in life 
by the decision of his will. He comes into the world and 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 459 

acts in the world as the member of a collective body. And 
as a part of this people his life forms a part of the total 
historical life of humanity, and, finally, of universal nature. 

But, it is said, self-consciousness knows nothing of such ne- 
cessity. Every one has an immediate feeling of certainty that 
he is not moulded into what he is from without, that every- 
thing would have happened otherwise if he had willed other- 
wise. 1 And he is likewise absolutely sure that the future 
shaping of his life depends upon his will: I could give up my 
business right now and start another one ; I could emigrate 
to St. Petersburg or to London or to America, — all this lies 
wholly in my power ; and such a course would evidently com- 
pletely change my life. I could also, and perhaps ought to, 
says self-consciousness, alter my mode of life, my behavior 
to others, my character. Is all this an illusion ? 

Certainly not. Self-consciousness does not deceive us. But 
what does it say ? Surely this, that to the influences which 
have determined and will continue to determine my life and 
character, must be added my wishes and inclinations, my con- 
victions and resolutions, and particularly these. It tells me 
that I am not moved from without like a cogwheel in a 
machine, but through the mediation of an inner element 
which I call my will. The organic differs from the inorganic 
in that the former is not determined by external, mechanical 
effects, but by the action of an inner principle : a statue is 
fashioned by chiselling or moulding, an organism may be de- 
stroyed, but it cannot be formed, by mechanical influences. 
Similarly, man is not moulded mechanically by things and 
men, but the outer as well as the inner man is formed by 
the reaction of an inner principle upon extraneous influences, 
by w r hich process his nature is gradually developed. That is 

1 [Sidgwick, Methods, p. 67 : " I hold, therefore, that against the formidable 
array of cumulative evidence offered for Determinism, there is but one argument 
of real force : the immediate affirmation of consciousness in the moment of 
deliberate action." — Tb.J 



460 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

what self-consciousness says ; never, however, does it tell uj 
that the particular processes arise without cause, that at any 
moment of life any occurrence whatever can take place, utterly 
regardless of all preceding ones ; this would, if it really hap- 
pened, be equivalent to the complete resolution of life into a 
series of disconnected and irrational accidents. Nor does it 
say that this inner principle, the character, the ego, or what- 
ever we may choose to call it, is itself absolutely uncaused, 
that it enters the world as an absolutely isolated element. In 
no sense does it contradict the view that the ego, like the 
organized body, is the product of evolution ; that it and its 
entire nature originally sprang from something else ; that it 
is exceedingly plastic during the earlier period of its develop- 
ment, but gradually becomes more capable of resistance, and 
acquires the ability to change its relations to its surround- 
ings, and thus indirectly its own form, through its own 
decisions. 1 

3. But in that case what becomes of responsibility ? Then 
each man is ultimately what God or Nature made him, and 
God or Nature is to blame if he does not turn out well. He 
himself cannot help it ; if he did not choose his original en- 
dowments, nor his character, nor his parents, nor his society, 
he could not, being what he was under those particular con- 

1 One of the reasons why it is so hard to bring about a reconciliation between 
determinism and indeterminism is above all a false conception of the nature of 
causality. It is customary to conceive the relation between cause and effect 
according to the notion of mechanical impact, and hence to regard necessity or 
compulsion as an essential element in it, a view which makes it impossible to 
apply the causal notion to the processes of psychical life. A more penetrating 
analysis of the relation, as we find it in thinkers, like Leibniz, Hume, and Lotze, 
shows that both compulsion and necessity are out of the question: the causal 
law says that there is a spontaneous concomitance of all elements, Leibniz's con- 
comitance universelle, not that each element is coerced or compelled by every 
other element. From this standpoint, causality is compatible with teleology ; the 
universal concomitance points to an original unity of plurality, at first in a suh 
stance, and ultimately in a unified reason. I can merely suggest these thoughts 
here. The reader will find a more elaborate treatment of them in my Tntrodvc 
Uon to Philosophy, pp. 212 ff. [Eng. translation, pp. 218 ff. — Tb.] 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 461 

ditions, have helped becoming what he now is. How can we 
blame him, how can we punish him for something which he 
really did not do, but suffered ? 

We reply : There is some ground for the first part of this 
conclusion, but none for the second. It is true, God or 
Nature cannot shirk the responsibility for their creations, 
if they cannot deny their authorship. We should despise 
a family as bad and worthless that had produced nothing 
but degenerate individuals for a number of generations ; we 
should hate and detest a nation that brought forth nothing 
but repulsive and base characters. If the world produced 
nothing but ugly and deformed creatures, we should un- 
doubtedly say it was worth nothing, and if we assumed the 
existence of a Cause, we should feel as little admiration 
for Him as for His work. If a good and beautiful human 
life is a credit to God, a worthless and disgraceful life is 
doubtless to His discredit. It is utterly incomprehensible 
how one conclusion can be drawn without the other. We 
cannot justify God for the evil in the world by saying that 
the human will is its absolute and ultimate cause, but only 
in the manner indicated above, 1 that is, by showing that 
evil, even though it remains evil, is in a certain measure 
necessary to the good, because the latter cannot exist and 
manifest itself without the former. 

Hence, to refer evil to causes means to shift the respon- 
sibility upon these causes. But, it must be added, this does 
not alter our feelings, our judgment, and our attitude towards 
the worthless and evil individual. To be sure, we should 
say, nothing good can come from such a source ; but this 
would not mean that the product, base though it may be, 
was pure and guiltless, and that we should treat it as such. 
Our judgment of the worth of a person depends upon what 
he is, not upon how he became so, and our attitude towards 
him depends on the same thing. " Every tree which bringeth 

1 Pp. 325 ff. 



462 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 5 ' 
We know very well that it cannot help its badness, that it has 
not chosen its own existence and nature, but that does not pre- 
vent us from saying : "Cut it down, why cumbereth it the 
ground ? " So, too, we kill a ferocious and dangerous domes- 
tic animal without supposing that it has voluntarily chosen 
its evil nature; its nature is evil, and that settles it. One 
thing alone could induce us to modify our behavior. Should 
we become convinced that the displeasing quality was due not 
so much to an original endowment as to unfavorable condi- 
tions of development, should we find, for example, that the 
tree was planted in poor soil, that the animal was in the 
hands of brutal men, then we should deliberate and perhaps 
attempt to remove the unfavorable influences, and remedy the 
defect by changing the external conditions of life. In case, 
however, the original endowment itself is bad, our repudia- 
tion of the form is final. 

We assume practically the same attitude towards human 
beings. It is no excuse for a worthless and degenerate fellow 
to appeal to the fact that he comes from a family that has 
been profligate for generations. Nay, this will hardly justify 
him in his own eyes. If a man should say to himself : I am 
by nature, by descent, a wicked knave, endowed with all 
kinds of perverse instincts and moral defects, it would not 
alter the fact that he possesses the feelings which go with 
wickedness and degeneracy. It would, however, excuse him 
in his own eyes and before others, if he could say: I am 
not naturally a bad man, I really do not belong to the set in 
which you find me. I owe my downfall to certain circum- 
stances — of course, I am not altogether free from blame — 
but I am a human being, my will is not absolutely proof 
against temptation; I was overtaken by want, without any 
fault of my own ; I have been treated outrageously by men ; 
I fell into bad company without knowing it. In case we 
believe him, our feelings change, anger gives way to pity, 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 468 

we endeavor to bring the unfortunate individual into more 
favorable surroundings, so that his better nature may find 
an opportunity to assert itself. 

Hence, we find here a double responsibility : First, we hold 
the individual himself accountable ; then the collective bodies 
which moulded him, his family, his social class, his nation, 
humanity at large ; and finally the All-Real itself. This is 
what actually happens everywhere : we invariably judge of 
the value of collective bodies by the goodness and badness of 
the individuals belonging to them. But this does not make 
unnecessary our evaluation of the individual ; on the contrary, 
the latter remains the essential precondition of the wider 
judgment. The individual is the point from which our feel- 
ing and judgment extends to the whole, of which he forms 
a part. 

I have always wondered why in our anxiety to save respon- 
sibility we invariably think of accountability for evil. Why 
are we not equally concerned about the responsibility for 
good ? Is it because we plainly recognize that our judgments 
of value are independent of the question of origin in the 
latter case ? We do not allow our enjoyment of the beauti- 
ful and the good to be the least disturbed by the knowledge 
of how they became what they are. Or is it because the im- 
pulse to reward is not so strong in us as the impulse to 
revenge ourselves and to punish ? 

What is true of moral accountability is likewise true of 
legal responsibility, which rests upon the former. Practical 
jurisprudence has never doubted that freedom of choice alone, 
and not metaphysical freedom, decides the question of respon- 
sibility. It has never been considered necessary to inquire 
whether the criminal owed his evil tendencies to heredity and 
education, or whether he created them by an absolute act of 
the will. Only occasionally have theorists, by constantly 
brooding over the problem of metaphysical freedom, or by 
gazing blankly at the figures furnished by statistics, become 



164 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

entangled in all kinds of curious perplexities and doubts : as 
to whether society has the right to punish, or whether it 
is not itself the guilty and responsible party. The same 
relative number of crimes, it is held, recur annually with 
the regularity of natural events, — perjury, murder, and 
crimes against morals ; a kind of necessity seems to prevail, 
particular criminals being selected as the victims to complete 
the criminal budget of society. 1 

We may reply to this : It is quite true ; society is guilty 
and therefore liable to punishment, it produces individuals 
with criminal tendencies, it also creates temptation and 
opportunities for crime. But is society not punished ? 
Is not, in the first place, the crime itself a punishment which 
it suffers ? The person against whom the offence is com- 
mitted is as much a part of society as the criminal. And the 
feeling of fear and insecurity caused by the crime is a further 
punishment. And the punishment itself, which is inflicted 
upon the criminal, is an additional punishment : when he 
suffers, a member of society suffers, the member namely, 
through whom it has sinned. And finally, society as a whole 
suffers the punishment which it inflicts ; for is it not a pun- 
ishment for a nation to watch, to support, to clothe, and to 
employ many thousands in penitentiaries and prisons at 
enormous expense ? Ought society to be punished in other 
ways? Shall all the others, with the sole exception of the 
criminal as the only innocent party, be punished ? Or what 
do these wonderful people mean ? 

We should further have to add that from the standpoint 
of collective life punishment is to be considered as a remedy 
against certain ills of society, a painful remedy which society 
prescribes in order to rid itself of these ills, that is, the crimes. 
The remedy is, naturally, applied to the seat of the disease, 
that is, to the criminal ; and here we expect to produce the 

1 [See Drobiech, Die moralische Statistik und die menschliche Willensfreiheit. t 
1867. —Tr.] 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 465 

immediate effects. The criminal, let us say, is imprisoned. 
This teaches him that his conduct is not appropriate, even 
for him. He cannot wish to relinquish his privilege to live 
in and with society ; the punishment reminds him that this 
is possible only under certain conditions, and that, in case 
he does not fulfil these conditions, he is hopelessly at the 
mercy of the stronger. At the same time labor shows him 
the way to a peaceful and profitable life. So the penitentiary 
is, in a sense, a hospital for the morally insane, in which, as 
in other hospitals, there are both curables and incurables. 
Society likewise protects itself against infection by isolating 
and deterring its offenders, or at least attempts it, for it is 
not wholly successful. Capital punishment is to be regarded 
in the same light : it is the last means of curing the criminal 
of his wicked will ; what good would it do him to prolong his 
life and enable him to increase his guilt ? And at the same 
time society protects itself against further disturbances, which 
are bound to spread from a hopelessly incurable member. 

This fact has, as we said before, never been doubted in the 
practical world. Accountability and legal responsibility 
merely presuppose freedom in the psychological sense. 
When the will of a man is expressed in his act, it is his act, 
and he is responsible for it. The question whether this will 
itself was fashioned into what it is by causes outside of it, is 
never broached by the judge. When, however, an act does 
not express the real will of the agent there is no responsibility. 
Insanity makes volition in the real human sense, choice as a 
result of rational deliberation, impossible. Violent passion 
may, under certain circumstances, and in a certain measure, 
have the same effect, in which case the real will of the entire 
man does not express itself. Therefore, deeds done in the 
heat of passion and without reflection are excused before the 
law ; not entirely, it is true, for the inability to control one's 
temper is a defect of the will, for which punishment is im- 
posed as an effective remedy. When, on the other hand, the 



4b'b CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

act is accidental or unavoidable, the agent is wholly exoner- 
ated ; there is no need of a remedy when the will has abso- 
lutely nothing to do with the deed. 

Some one, however, disturbed by such psycho-physical spec- 
ulations, might argue as follows : Well, after all, the same 
remarks apply to insanity. If we regard and treat this as a 
brain-disease, why not do the same with other abnormal 
states ? The criminal impulse of the thief or incendiary must 
be explained scientifically, as an inherited or acquired predis- 
position of the brain, and hence the person thus afflicted must 
be treated as diseased. Our answer would be : We can cer- 
tainly look at the matter in this way ; the impulse to commit 
arson is an abnormal tendency of the brain, likewise the im- 
pulse to steal ; and of course, the impulse of the boy who 
wantonly destroys his playthings, or of the little girl who 
annoys her parents and teachers by her carelessness and 
fickleness, all these, too, are to be regarded as abnormal or 
diseased predispositions of the brain. But, now draw the con- 
clusions. We attempt to cure diseases with the remedies 
which experience has found to be efficacious. If the physician 
can heal the insane by dietaries and shower-baths and medi- 
cines, very well ; and if he can also cure those afflicted with the 
impulse to commit arson with the same or similar remedies, 
very well ; we shall be glad to place such persons under his 
care, as well as the bad boy whose pranks annoy us. But in 
case his remedies prove unsuccessful here, let him not hinder 
us from trying other cures, especially such as have stood the 
test of experience ; for example, for bad boys a natural remedy 
that grows on the hedges. And in case he cannot reach the 
impulse to steal or the impulse to destroy, by the remedies of 
the apothecary, let him allow us in the meantime to continue 
the use of an old remedy which, though not absolutely sure, 
has nevertheless met with a certain degree of success as an 
antidote against such impulses ; that is, the prison and the 
penitentiary. So soon as he discovers a more certain, s ; m* 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 467 

pier, less roundabout and expensive specific, we shall be glad 
to dispense with these disagreeable and inadequate cures of 
ours. — But why do you not treat the maniac in the same way, 
why do you not bring him before court, and sentence him to 
jail when he commits a crime ? — "We should certainly do so 
if we believed that the treatment employed by judges and 
prison-guards would produce better results in his case than 
that applied to him and others similarly afflicted, by physi- 
cians and nurses. In the meanwhile, we are of the opinion 
that to subject him to the process of the criminal law would 
make no impression upon him, would have no such influence 
upon his future behavior as the rod has upon the boy, or the 
penitentiary has — at least occasionally — upon the thief and 
his possible successors. Besides, we certainly do place the 
insane person under restraint when he becomes dangerous to 
himself or to others, and protect ourselves against him, so far 
as we can, as much as against the thief. 

Indeed, it is a very strange procedure, first to explain 
criminal impulses as diseases, and then to conclude from this 
that nothing ought to be done against them. Against diseases 
we employ all remedies that help, even though they burn and 
smart. 

4. Then is there no such thing as free will ? 

Lest any one may draw this conclusion from my argu- 
ments, I add the following : 

The expression freedom of the will signifies in popular 
speech a real, positive property of human nature. Animals, 
too, have wills, but we do not attribute free will to them. 
Wherein does the difference consist ? 

Animals are moved to action by momentary impulses 
and perceptions. An animal observes its prey, hears the 
approach of the foe ; the percepts immediately produce ap- 
propriate movements of pursuit or flight. Deliberation, hesi- 
tation, and choice exist only in rudimentary form among the 
most highly developed animals. 



468 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

Now such processes are characteristic of man. He deter- 
mines his conduct by resolutions. Resolutions are the result 
of deliberation; in deliberation several possible courses of 
action or modes of behavior are compared with the ultimate 
aims of individual and social life, and chosen accordingly. 
Man, therefore, is not determined by his impulses, but he 
determines himself by ideas of ends. In his purposes, man 
comprehends his whole activity, his whole life, into a unity, 
as it were, and chooses the particular acts according to 
their relation to this principle. Animal life is divided into 
a plurality of isolated, disconnected functions ; human life 
is embraced into the unity of an idea, and the latter evolves 
the particular moments demanded by the purpose of the 
whole. The unity of practical self-consciousness, or con- 
science, exercises a constant control over the particular 
processes of inner life, feelings, strivings, acts, thoughts. 
Well, this faculty of regulating and determining the particu- 
lar functions of life by an idea of one's life, is precisely what 
we mean by free will. Hence we may also say that a person's 
acts are free, when he is determined not by present stimuli 
and the momentary desires aroused by them, but by ideas 
of ends and ideals, by duty and conscience ; in the former 
case he is driven (agitur), in the latter alone he acts (agit). 

We may accordingly add that, in a certain sense, the 
view that the human will is exempt, or forms a kind of en- 
clave in nature is correct. The animal is a point of transition 
for natural processes ; it is itself a part of nature, deter- 
mined from without by constantly -approaching stimuli and 
influences. Man, on the other hand, in a certain manner, 
emancipates himself from the course of nature ; he rises 
above nature and opposes it as a self, he determines it and 
employs it, is not determined by it : man becomes a person- 
ality. As such he is able to put his whole self, his ego, into 
every phase of his life, and therefore he is responsible for 
every particular act. 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 469 

It is apparent that freedom in this sense is not an original 
endowment of human nature, but an acquired characteristic ; 
it has been acquired by the entire race in the course of his- 
tory, and must be acquired anew by each individual. The 
new-born child does not bring with it a ready-made freedom ; 
nay, it is driven like an animal by momentary cravings. 
But gradually the rational will, supported by education, 
rises above the animal impulses. This occurs in a different 
degree in different individuals ; some are wholly controlled 
by these impulses during their entire lives, others acquire 
such a remarkable control over nature in themselves that 
they seem to regulate even the smallest details of their lives 
by rational deliberation, and never do anything or leave 
anything undone, except by choice. It is to be observed, in 
this connection, that though it is vulgar and base to give 
the impulses complete mastery over one's self (a/coXao-ia) , 
yet the complete suppression of them fills us with fear and 
awe : no one, as has been said, is lovable without his weak 
nesses. Man seems to be intended as a mean between an 
animal and a purely rational being. 

Hence, can man determine himself by his own will ? Can 
he fashion his will by means of his will ? — Yes and no. Yes, 
for he undoubtedly has the faculty of educating himself ; he 
can fashion his outer and inner man, with conscious purpose, 
according to his ideal ; he can discipline his natural impulses, 
nay, even suppress them so that they will no longer move 
him. To be sure, he cannot do this simply by wishing or 
resolving it ; he can do it only by constant practice and by 
employing appropriate means, in the same way that he ac- 
quires bodily skill. We cannot when awake immediately force 
ourselves to sleep, by an act of the will ; but we can, by 
proper diet and work, exercise such an influence upon the 
body that sleep will come in time of its own accord. It is 
said that Demosthenes's pronunciation was naturally indis- 
tinct and defective; the will to be an orator was not able, 



470 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

per se, to coerce the organs of speech, but it was able to 
prescribe to nature long and arduous tasks and to make these 
serve the desired end. Inner nature is susceptible of being 
influenced in the same way. A man knows that he has a 
dangerous tendency to anger. He decides to overcome it. 
His prudence and his good resolutions alone cannot, of course, 
by their mere presence, repress the violent fit of temper the 
very first time it breaks out again. But they can take the 
proper precautions necessary to subdue it gradually. They 
determine him to avoid temptation ; every organ, however, 
that is not exercised decays. His mind is filled with examples 
of the injurious effects of anger as well as with examples of 
self-control ; he even makes use of trivial aids : we accustom 
ourselves to say a prayer or to recite a few verses when we 
are seized with anger. Hence, a man can unquestionably 
transform his nature by his will. He may by inhibiting cer- 
tain impulses destroy them, and develop and strengthen 
weak impulses by habit. Habit, says the proverb, is second 
nature. 

On the other hand, we shall have to say that this formative 
principle itself must be native to him ; this he cannot give him- 
self by his will, for it is the innermost will itself. Man does 
not exist before himself, choosing or determining his will by 
his will ; that would be equivalent to Miinchhausen's attempt 
to pull himself out of the mire by his own cue. Only 
a pre-existing fundamental will can determine the develop- 
ment of the empirical character in the course of life. In so 
far, but only in so far, Schopenhauer is right : the character 
does not change. Unless a man sees .the harmfulness of anger, 
the disgracefulness of cowardice and falsehood, unless he 
already has the will to oppose these, he will, of course, 
not be able to train himself to gentleness or courage. But 
Schopenhauer is wrong when he misinterprets the proposition 
to mean that a change of the nature and of the modes of 
action of the will is impossible. That is not only a false, 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 471 

but also a dangerous, discouraging doctrine. We are bound 
to hold that whoever desires to change can do so ; only, the 
will must be in earnest, it must desire the means which lead 
to the end. Empty wishes will not do it. 

The old psychology, which was developed mainly as an 
aid to practical philosophy, offers some useful conceptions 
for our practical guidance. Thus, for example, the Pla- 
tonic division of the soul into reason, will, and animal desire, 
is an admirable help to the moral preacher. Here the subject 
of freedom is, practically considered, a very simple and effect- 
ive affair. The reason is the real ego, the free self of man ; 
it is combined in our earthly life with animal desires and 
feelings ; its function is to educate and control these in such 
a way that they will serve the reason and its ends. Noble 
courage, righteous anger, the joyful craving for honor and 
distinction, assist it in disciplining the sensuous desires. 
The moralist always appeals to the real self, he urges man to 
be mindful of his mission and his dignity ; he pictures the 
rule of sensuous desire as disgraceful slavery, in which the 
self is subordinated to the animal part of nature. Spinozistic, 
Wolffian, and Kantian ethics employ similar conceptions. In 
the first two systems the opposition between reason and the 
affective states, between the higher and lower faculties of de- 
sire, is emphasized ; in the latter, stress is laid upon the oppo- 
sition between the homo phaenomenon and the homo noumenon, 
between practical reason and the sensuous, selfish inclination. 
We are everywhere confronted with the notion : The freedom 
of man means the control of the spirit, the slavery of man 
means the rule of the animal desires. 

This is the positive significance of the freedom of the will. 
And ethics should not permit the whimsical attempts of a few 
metaphysicians to explain freedom of the will as the cause- 
lessness of the individual will or volition, to induce her 
absolutely to reject the so fruitful and necessary concept of 
free will. Freedom of will means, according to the popular 



472 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 

usage of all men, these metaphysicians excepted, the faculty 
to determine one's life, independently of sensuous impulses 
and inclinations, by reason and conscience, according to pur- 
poses and laws ; and that man has such a faculty, that this 
really constitutes the very essence of man, no one has ever 
doubted. 



BOOK III 

DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 



I possess three treasures, these I guard and prize highly. The 
first is the love of humanity ; the second, frugality ; the third, that 1 
do not presume to be better than any one else. 

Love of humanity — with this I can be fearless ; frugality — 
therefore I can give to others ; freedom from ambition — hence 1 
have no one above me. 

Nowadays we despise love of humanity and are insolent, we 
despise economy and are wasteful, we despise modesty and strive to 
surpass every one else. These paths lead to death. 

Laotsee, Taoteking 67. 
(After the translation of Noack.) 



CHAPTER I 

VIRTUES AND VICES IN GENERAL * 

The doctrine of duties and the doctrine of virtues are dif- 
ferent modes of presenting the same subject-matter. The 
former gives us a system of rules which, as commands or 
laws, specify the modes of conduct essential to the solution 
of the problem of life. The doctrine of virtues describes the 
system of powers by the exercise of which this end is realized. 
We have already discussed the nature of duty. Let me now 
add a few words concerning the nature of virtue. 

Virtues may be denned as habits of the will and modes 
of conduct which tend to promote the welfare of individual 
and collective life. Impulses form their natural basis. 
Virtues are not inventions of the moralists ; they are natural 
predispositions. Predispositions only, remember; for im- 
pulses are not themselves virtues : as impulses they have no 
moral quality. The impulse to eat is not good or bad, but it 
is the foundation of rational self-preservation. The sexual 
impulse is not good or bad, but it is the natural basis of the 
virtues on which family-life depends. Compassion or sym- 
pathy, the impulse to alleviate the pains of others, is not good 
or bad, but it is the natural foundation of the virtue of 
benevolence. Similarly, indignation at wrong and the impulse 

1 [Aristotle, Ethics, Bk. II. ; Sidgwick, Methods, Bk. III., chap. II. ; Porter, 
Moral Science, Part II., chap. I. ; Fowler and Wilson, Principles of Morals, 
Part II., chap. VII. ; Dorner, Das menschliche Handeln, Part II., section 1 ; 
Wiese, Die Bildung des Willens ; Runze, Practische Ethik, § 17. Run ze gives 
bibliographies of the topics discussed in the following chapters. See also works 
on Practical Ethics : Hyde, Everett, and Gilman. — Tr.] 



476 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

of revenge form the natural basis of the sense of justice. 
Moreover, impulses form the permanent basis of the virtues. 
They cannot, as many moralists are prone to assume, be sup- 
planted by rational reflection. A being like Spinoza's sage, 
who is determined to action, not by impulse, but by reason 
alone, does not exist and cannot'exist ; any more than Kant's 
dutiful man, whose will is governed solely by respect for the 
moral law, without impulse and inclination. Such a being 
would not be a human being, but a phantom. 

Impulses are fashioned into virtues or moral excellences by 
the reason. We are educated, first, by the reason of 
others, then by our own reason. Human life begins as a 
purely impulsive life ; the reason is developed slowly and 
at a late stage. During the long period of youth, the col- 
lective reason of the race, as represented by parents, edu- 
cators, and teachers, takes the place of individual reason. 
Fixed habits are the result of this education; in them the 
customs {Sitteri) of the community become individualized. 
Acquired habits constitute an extremely important part of 
moral culture ; they obtain control over life, and guide it with 
automatic certainty. The important elementary functions 
of life, especially, are governed by them. Cleanliness, for 
example, against which the child at first rebels, becomes a 
habit, which acts with the regularity of a natural function. 
Most closely related to it, is shame, which is implanted and 
established by education, and soon acquires the force and 
certainty of an instinct. So, too, aversion to falsehood, or 
politeness to others, becomes a second nature. The formation 
of such automatic forms of reaction constitutes a primary and 
important phase of moral education. The second stage is the 
gradual development of the individual's appreciation of the 
value of moral goods : this is the function of moral instruction. 
The latter will always have to consist, at first, in the presen- 
tation of concrete examples of the good, and — provided the 
proper oare is exercised — of examples of the evil also. After 



VIRTUES AND VICES IN GENERAL 477 

many concrete facts have been handled, the abstract or philo- 
sophical treatment of moral concepts will gradually be taken 
up. Perhaps our public instruction is too cautious in this re- 
spect. Our schools, the higher as well as the lower, are afraid 
of the evil effects of premature abstract instruction in morals, 
and therefore decide to omit it altogether. I fear that the 
omission is disastrous. The time is bound to come in the 
life of every young man when he will begin to inquire into 
the principles of moral conduct and judgment ; and there is 
danger that, being wholly without guidance, he will become 
the helpless victim of his own crude thoughts or of the sophistry 
of " enlightened " companions. Principles and moral in- 
struction are not in themselves necessary to secure correct 
judgment and action, but they are necessary to protect the 
individual against inadequate and misleading principles. 

But not only is the individual educated by others, he 
gradually learns to educate himself. The important thing is 
to learn the great art of governing the inclinations by means of 
a rational will, one that is determined by principles, to fashion 
and educate the impulses according to an idea of perfection, 
which gradually assumes shape. When the child leaves 
school and the parental home, his education by others practi- 
cally comes to an end. The most eventful period of his life 
now begins, the period of incipient moral independence. His 
previous training is now put to the test ; it must show 
whether it has succeeded in establishing the power of self- 
government. Not many discover the right path at once ; the 
art of self-government, like everything else, has to be learned. 
It can be acquired only by constant intercourse with the 
world ; hence there is an instinctive desire at this period of 
life to come into frequent contact with men and things ; these 
are the years of travel (Wanderjahre*), which follow the years 
of apprenticeship (Lehrjahre). At the end of the Wander- 
jahre, between the ages of twenty and thirty, or in some cases 
not until the close of this period, the inner man has assumed 



478 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

definite and permanent shape. The following years do not 
possess the dramatic interest of their predecessors, the time 
of great crises and decisions is past ; the exercise of the 
physical, mental, and moral powers and capacities which have 
been acquired forms the content of the age of manhood, the 
Meisterjahre. In old age the powers diminish, life gradually 
loses itself in reminiscenses, and so drifts into the past. 
Differences in moral types correspond to these four ages of 
life. Pliant modesty constitutes the inner habit of the well- 
trained boy ; hopeful, optimistic idealism, that of the youth ; 
persistent and energetic action, that of the man ; the tranquil 
peace of contemplation, that of old age. 

This would answer the old question, the discussion of which 
marked the beginning of Greek moral philosophy : Can virtue 
be taught f We answer with Aristotle : It certainly can ; but, 
like all excellences, it must be practised first of all ; hearing 
others talk about it will not avail. We do not learn to walk 
and to ride, to teach and to govern, by hearing these things 
talked of ; so it is with virtue. Of course, practice can and 
must afterwards be supplemented by theoretical instruction ; 
this applies to moral efficiency as well as to physical dexter- 
ity and skill. The counsels and teachings of parents and 
teachers, of spiritual advisers and preachers, may assist the 
moral development in a most effective way. We shall there- 
fore by no means agree with Schopenhauer that moral instruc- 
tion and moral preaching are utterly useless ; employed at 
the right time and in the proper place they constitute an 
important part of the great art of governing souls. Of course, 
mere babble will not avail. Such instruction will prove effec- 
tive only in case it comes from the proper source, and rests 
upon a profound knowledge of life, its order, and its laws. 

Virtues are normal powers of the will, tending to preserve 
and unfold human mental life. Vices, on the other hand, 
are abnormally-developed powers of the will, which tend to 
destroy individual life and that of the surroundings ; or, 



VIRTUES AND VICES IN GENERAL 479 

rather, not really powers of the will at all, if we mean by will 
the rational human will, but abnormally-developed natural 
impulses. Vice always indicates a lack of will ; indeed, all evil 
is, according to the old view, nothing really positive ; it does 
not belong to the essence of the will, but must be defined as 
a lack of will. And this is true also in the sense that even 
the natural will essentially aims at the good ; evil as such is 
never the goal of the will, it becomes a part of it only in 
case the will cannot realize a good, a real or apparent good, 
except at the price of the evil. 

The fundamental form of vice is lack of will-power to 
harmonize the impulses ; strong natural impulses gain abso- 
lute supremacy, while weak ones entirely disappear. When 
the sympathetic impulse or the instinctive faculty to anticipate 
in feeling the more remote consequences of acts, is poorly 
developed, and the defect is not remedied by education and 
self-government, the habit of selfishness or inconsiderateness 
arises. Certain impulses may be hypertrophically developed, 
and may gradually crowd out all the others. So for example, 
in the case of the alcoholist, the desire for certain stimulants, 
gradually increases in strength, and all other impulses die 
out, such as the impulse to work and acquire, the love of 
knowledge and spiritual activity. The sympathetic feelings 
and social impulses are likewise weakened and finally extin- 
guished, and with them shame and conscience, which at first 
reacted against the excesses, disappear. In the same way 
life is debauched by other abnormally-developed impulses, by 
unbridled sexual impulses, by the impulse to acquire and 
possess property, which is intensified in rapacity and greed, 
by the love of fame and honor, which degenerates into am- 
bition, etc. ; these monopolize all powers and all strivings, 
and finally render the soul completely insensible to all other 
interests and considerations. 

As a rule, vice is the result of defective natural endow 
ments and unfavorable conditions of life and development. A 



480 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

defective education, evil associations, unfavorable economic 
conditions, unhappy domestic relations, will utterly destroy 
a nature that would have been preserved and might have 
adapted itself to its surroundings under more favorable con- 
ditions. By proper treatment, fitting self-denial, and exer- 
cise, an impulse inclining to excess may be held in check, 
while weak impulses may be developed and strengthened by 
timely care. This shows the immense importance of educa- 
tion, environment, established custom, and public opinion; 
upon these rests the responsibility of society towards the 
individual. Had it cared for him and educated him, he would 
not have perished. 

Can and must we say that, however unfavorable the natural 
predisposition of an individual may be, he can, under the 
proper conditions of life and development, become an honest 
and virtuous man? Is Rousseau right in holding that all 
wills are by nature good, that every child may become a 
righteous man, that if he does not, education and unfavorable 
conditions are to blame ? * The age of pedagogical reform 
accepted Rousseau's view, and was stimulated by his example 
to the performance of great and fruitful deeds. Even 
at present we base our practice on the hypothesis that this 
theory is correct, and must do so. Education universally pre- 
supposes that every human being may, with the proper 
attention, love, and care, become an honorable and efficient, 
virtuous and happy man. 

So far, however, as the theory itself is concerned, our age 
has become somewhat uncertain and sceptical. Rousseau's 
optimistic view of human nature will not easily find supporters 
in our day. We no longer believe that education can make 
anything out of any one. Too many facts contradict the old 
dogma of empiristic psychology that the soul is at birth a 
white piece of paper, capable of receiving any impressions 
whatsoever. Hence we are inclined to agree with a realistic 

i [See Runze, §§ 13, 18.— Te.] 



VIRTUES AND VICES IN GENERAL 481 

or pessimistic conception of humanity that there are children 
of sin for whom nothing whatever can be done, individuals 
endowed with such perverse impulses, exhibiting such a total 
lack of shame and reverence and sympathetic feeling, as to 
be utterly impervious to the influences of education. 1 The 
concept " moral insanity " has been formed to apply to such 
cases. 

Facts undoubtedly exist for which this concept has been 
formed. Not only are there persons who show a lack of in- 
tellectual power which amounts to an almost total absence of 
intelligence in idiocy, but there are some who are completely 
devoid of moral endowments, without being totally deficient 
in intelligence, although the latter is frequently dwarfed and 
perverted in such cases. Nevertheless, we may uphold the 
claim that there is no absolute lack of moral endowment, 
no absolute perverseness ; even in such dwarfed natures there 
is some tendency to the good. If only they had received the 
proper sympathy and training from the very beginning, they 
might have been saved. Perhaps there is no longer any hope 
for them later on ; when such a defective soul is subjected to 
unfavorable influences at the outset, it may soon become in- 
curable. And this is apt to be the case ; for hereditary 
defects and imperfect early training go together. Conclusive 
arguments are, in the very nature of things, impossible here ; 
faith, however, which governs our practical life, must cling 
to the assumption expressed in Riickert's lines : 

Schlage nur mit der Wunschelrut' 
An die Felsen der Herzen an ; 
Ein Schatz in jedem Busen ruht 
Den ein Verstandiger heben kann. 

It is customary to distinguish between two kinds of duties : 
duties towards self and duties towards others. The notion of 
duty towards self has been rejected by some ; there can be 
duties, it is held, only where there are legal rights. It seems 

1 [See Lombroso, The Criminal ; Striimpell, Pedagogische Pathologic — Tr.J 



482 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

to me that this is an unnecessary contraction of the concept. 
If the individual life has its moral problems to solve, it likewise 
has its duties. If the individual as such has absolutely no 
moral problems to solve, I cannot see how there can be any 
duties to others, either to individuals or collective bodies, ex- 
cept the purely negative duty of non-interference. We cannot 
obtain a positive quantity by multiplying zeros. Hence I 
shall retain the old classification, reminding the reader, how- 
ever, that it is not a legitimate division : there are, as was 
shown above, 1 no acts which affect only the individual or 
society, hence also no duties towards self which are not 
at the same time duties towards others, and conversely. 

Corresponding to this classification of duties, we may also 
divide the virtues into two groups; we may call them in- 
dividualistic and social virtues. The fundamental form of the 
former is self-control, the fundamental form of the latter, 
benevolence. They are rooted in the two fundamental forms 
of impulsive life : the impulse of self-preservation and the 
sexual impulse. 

We shall first treat of the duties towards self and the in- 
dividualistic virtues, which are based upon the self-preserva- 
tive impulse of the individual. We shall take up the separate 
spheres of action, and first deal with the education of the 
will and the dietetics of the affective states; then we shall 
consider the bodily, economic, and spiritual life, and every- 
where attempt to define the problems and duties, as well as 
the capacities and virtues pertaining to them. In conclusion, 
we shall discuss the problems which arise from our relations 
to others, and examine the duties and virtues peculiar to this 
sphere. 

i L, 383 Si 



CHAPTER II 

THE EDUCATION OF THE WILL AND THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
FEELINGS, OR SELF-CONTROL i 

1. The chief purpose of all moral culture is to fashion the 
rational will so that it may become the regulative principle 
of the entire sphere of conduct. We call the virtue or ex- 
cellence which regulates our behavior and conduct by the 
rational will, independently of momentary feelings, self- 
control. We may also define it as the capacity to govern 
life by purposes and ideals. It is the fundamental condition 
of all moral virtues, the fundamental precondition of all 
human worth, nay, the fundamental characteristic of human 
nature. Animals are determined by blind impulses, but the 
specific excellence of man consists in his determining his 
life by his will ; without self-control, no freedom and no 
personality. The Greeks call the virtue of self-control 
o-GHppoavvT], healthy-mindedness. 'Afacov, senseless, foolish, 
is the man whom fear, anger, and desire, control, causing 
him to act irrationally and to ruin himself ; acocppcov, 
healthy-minded, rational, on the contrary, is the man who 
keeps his wits even in difficult situations, and acts in ac- 
cordance with the law of self-preservation. 2 

i [Aristotle, Bk. II., chs. VII. ff . ; Bk. III., chs. IX. ff . ; Bk. VII. ; Paley, Moral 
Philosophy, Bk. IV. ; Sidgwick, Bk. DDL, chs. IX., X. ; Spencer, Inductions of 
Ethics, chs. XII., XIII. ; Porter, Moral Science, Part II, chs. II., V. ; Runze, §§ 
20 ff . ; Smyth, Christian Ethics, Part II., ch. II. ; Dorner, pp. 356-378 ; Fowler 
and Wilson, Part H., ch. I. — Tr.] 

2 It is a well-known fact that no virtue was more universally recognized ana 
extolled by the Greek poets than self-control. Perhaps, however, it would he a 
aelusion to suppose that the predisposition to awtypoavvq was a particular trait 



484 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

Self-control 1 assumes different phases, corresponding to 
the different forms of impulsive life. As its two fundamen- 
tal aspects we may, with the Greek moralists, designate tem- 
perance (iy/cpdreia) and courage. Temperance may be 
denned as the moral power to resist desires attracted by 

of the Greek national character. Perhaps Lessing's celebrated remark also 
applies to nations : we talk most of the virtues which we least possess, and whose 
value we have learned to appreciate because we have felt their lack. The 
Greeks were gifted with fine sensibilities and high intelligence, which especially 
fitted them for and made them keenly alive to all kinds of play and art, dial- 
ectics and philosophy; but they were somewhat lacking in energy and per- 
severance. That is the way the Romans regarded them ; in comparison with 
their own natural seriousness and gravity (gravitas) the Greeks seemed sanguine 
and mobile, cunning and fickle : the Frenchmen of antiquity. They had a poor 
opinion of their talents for politics and war. However, it is this very thing 
that made the Greeks the great teachers of the virtue of self-control. The 
Stoics became the moral preachers of the world, directly or indirectly. Their 
entire system of morality, however, is a guide to the discipline of the emotions. 

Among modern authors may be mentioned the physician Feuchtersleben, 
who has written a widely read Dietetics of the Soul (Dietatik der Seele). An 
excellent little book is Harriet Beecher Stowe's (the authoress of Uncle Tom's 
Cabin) Little Foxes. Two good books of the last century are B. Franklin's 
Autobiography and Campe's Theophron. Everybody is familiar with Goethe's mag- 
nificent Spriiche in Prosa und Versen. Lagarde's writings (3d edit., 1891 ) have the 
form of public moral sermons, addressed to the German people. They remind us 
of Fichte's Reden. The book of the Swiss Hilty, Glitch (4th edit., 1895), is 
making many friends. The Addresses of the American W. Salter also con- 
tain moral sermons. — These addresses were delivered before " Societies for Ethical 
Culture," which exist in several American cities. The idea of such a society, of a 
united ethical party regardless of nationality and creed, had already attracted the 
attention of B. Franklin (see his Autobiography). " Ethical Societies " have of 
late been transplanted to Germany ; whether they will take root here, remains to 
be seen. The universal love of morality is not a strong bond of union between 
men ; a particular purpose, even accidental hatred or superstition, has greater 
binding force. These ethical societies are, first of all, opposed to church morality ; 
moral sermons based upon dogmatics they regard as ineffectual. There is cer- 
tainly room for much improvement here : and if the ethical societies succeed, in 
the slightest degree, in bringing ethical culture to those who have turned their 
backs upon the church, they deserve not hatred and contempt, but gratitude and 
recognition. They may, perhaps, even help Christianity in gaining a foothold in 
these circles. For it is certainly true that no more important moral events ever 
occurred upon this earth than are reported in the New Testament ; and we shall 
search in vain for more effective moral sermons than those in the Gospels and 
Epistles. [Blackie's Self-Culture deserves a place in the list of books mentioned 
here.— Tk.] 

* [See also Runze, §§ 9 f . — Tb.] 



SELF-CONTROL 486 

tempting enjoyment, when the gratification of such desires 
tends to endanger an essential good. Courage is the moral 
power to resist the natural fear of pain and danger, 
when the preservation of an essential good demands such 
resistance. 

2. Temperance or moderation, 1 the ability to resist temp- 
tation to sensuous pleasure, is the precondition of humaniza- 
tion. The animal is essentially blind impulse, in the satis- 
faction of which its life consists. Man, too, is endowed with 
an animal nature, but its purpose is to serve as the soil for 
a higher, spiritual life ; this soil is prepared by the discipline 
of the natural impulses. The latter are not to be eradicated, 
that would mean insensibility and finally death, but their satis- 
faction is to be so regulated that they will not only not disturb 
the development of higher life, but rather assist it. The rela- 
tion is reversed in the opposite habit, intemperance (afcoXaala) ; 
intemperance is not merely a relapse into an animal state : nay, 
the higher powers and gifts of man are here subordinated to 
sensuous desire. So in gluttony and the worship of the belly ; 
all the arts of civilization are here employed to excite and 
satisfy sensuous desires. So pleasure-seeking and also sexual 
dissipation have drawn into their service an entire industry 
of exquisite enjoyments. 

Even the most superficial examination of the facts cannot 
leave us in doubt as to the value and effects of these two con- 
trary modes of action. Intemperance, dissipation, inordinate 
love of pleasure, first of all destroy our sense and capacity 
for higher things ; the will and the intellect are exhausted by 
excesses ; finally the sensibility is blunted until at last even 
the faculty for enjoyment is lost. Ail passive enjoyments 
deaden the sensibilities ; stronger and more refined excitations 
are constantly needed to procure feelings of pleasure through 
the exhausted organ, until at last the chronic state of dulness 
which is characteristic of the roue is reached ; the powers of 

1 [Spencer, Inductions, XII. ; Stephen, ch. V., 3 ; Seth, Part II., ch. I. — Tr.] 



486 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

the organism and its irritability are exhausted ; nothing is 
left but the repulsive dregs of life. — Temperance has the 
opposite effect ; it makes the entire man healthy and vigorous, 
capable of action and enjoyment. 

This virtue, like all habits, is acquired by experience. The 
foundation is laid by a good education. The best way to pre- 
vent the growth of excessive desires is to satisfy the natural 
needs in an appropiate and orderly manner. This can easily 
be done in a well-regulated household, but is extremely diffi- 
cult under conditions of luxury as well as of poverty. Per- 
haps we can still agree with John Locke that an honest 
farmhouse is the best place for rearing a child. Gradually 
the child may be encouraged to give up little things of its 
own accord ; we cannot begin too soon in teaching the child 
the great art of life : to sacrifice to-day for to-morrow. The 
child then educates itself. The sense of honor may be ap- 
pealed to as an ally against desire. The ability to bear priva- 
tion with equanimity is so closely related to courage that the 
boy too sees the connection : it is weak and cowardly to yield 
to desire. Greek ethics is full of excellent moral advice on 
this very subject. How disgraceful, it says, to be compelled 
to obey the animal or child in us, which is full of needs and 
desires ; how beautiful and praiseworthy and in keeping with 
man's dignity, on the other hand, is the freedom and inde- 
pendence which is not disturbed by privation and want! 
Whoever succumbs to his desires is a slave to objects ; they 
draw him now hither, now thither, through pleasure and fear. 
The gods are without needs, and therefore without fear and 
desire ; the fewer our needs, the nearer we are to the gods. 
These are sentiments which the youth of all ages can uuder- 
stand. When the sense of honor works in the opposite direc- 
tion, as happens, to a large extent, in our times, the relation 
is an unnatural one. There are perhaps two essential reasons 
for such perverseness. The first is the wish of the youth to 
show that he has the means, the second, that lie has the 



SELF-CONTROL 487 

power and the courage to indulge himself. The latter motive 
exercises a particularly strong influence upon the young man. 
He is afraid of being looked upon as a baby, standing in awe 
of the rod, or as a " goody-good" boy, who is afraid of hell 
and the devil. He demonstrates his independence as a man, 
and freedom of mind, by an open violation of the law. The 
lad who has just been confirmed proudly struts up and down 
the village street with a pipe in his mouth and " shows off." 
In the same way, the satisfaction of other cravings becomes a 
matter of show. We are ashamed, to use Augustine's expres- 
sion, of not being shameless. The reaction of the years of 
indiscretion (Flegeljahre l ) against the compulsion of educa- 
tion will, to some extent, make its appearance everywhere. 
Perhaps our methods of instruction contribute largely to make 
the reaction so acute among us. The type of the libertine is, 
like the type of the priestling QPfaffe), a form of degeneracy 
which thrives upon Christian soil. It was not known to the 
classical world. 

The most fruitful method of counteracting the growth of 
cupidity and the inordinate love of pleasure is to train the 
individual to efficient action. All successful exercise of nat- 
ural powers and skill in labor and in play is, as Aristotle 
teaches, accompanied by pleasure. And this pleasure is 
superior to the pleasure of passive enjoyment. It can be 
procured without the sting of desire. It is more independ- 
ent of external conditions ; enjoyment consumes, activity 
creates commodities. It is intensified by repetition ; for while 
passive pleasure increases the intensity of the desire but 
dulls the faculty of enjoyment, action increases our efficiency ; 
and the greater the skill, the greater the pleasure of exercis- 
ing it. As in all cases, the better is here the enemy of the 
good : the pleasure which we derive from action, especially 
that resulting from play, is the most effective means of sup- 
pressing the pleasures of passive enjoyment. The Greeks 

1 [The puppy-dog stage.] 



488 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

possessed a powerful antidote against the love of pleasure 
among the youth in their gymnastics and military exercises 
and games. Since it was impossible to attain to proficiency 
in them and be dissipated and effeminate, the sense of honor 
operated in the right direction. — We, too, have our military 
exercises, but, apart from other unfavorable conditions under 
which they take place, they come a little too late. Between 
the school days and the time of military service a long period 
of freedom intervenes which is but too often spent in dissipa- 
tion. For this reason, too, it would evidently be desirable 
gradually to advance a part of the general military training to 
an earlier age. To be sure, this change should not be brought 
about by a police regulation, which might simply make mat- 
ters worse, but by a change in popular custom. Perhaps the 
old Germanic love of athletic sports will be revived among 
us, as indications seem to show. 

A word concerning asceticism l may not be out of place here. 
An ascetic life is characterized by the habitual renunciation 
even of moderate and legitimate pleasures. Modern moral- 
ists, as a rule, reject it as an aberration ; and, indeed, the 
principle on which it rests seems to be the exact opposite 
of the principle of welfare. The three vows of monachism 
signify the renunciation of wealth, or material culture ; of 
fame and power, or ideal culture ; and finally, of family life, 
that is, the preservation of the species, or the precondition 
of all human culture. Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly true 
that genuine asceticism arouses not contempt and aversion, 
but respect and admiration, even among pronounced " chil- 
dren of the world," that is, when they have no principle to 
defend. The phenomenon may perhaps be explained as fol- 
lows. The tendency to go to the other extreme of excess 
is natural and universal ; incontinence causes the ruin of 
many. Excessive temperance, therefore, does not seem to be 

1 [Lecky, History of European Morals, I., 113, 130; II., 101 ff.; Harnack, Das 
MOnchthum; Runze, §11. — Tr.] 



SELF-CONTROL 489 

dangerous, but meritorious ; for two reasons : The incon- 
tinence of some is, in a certain sense, directly compensated, 
by the extreme continence of others. The doctrine of the 
good works of the saints finds a natural support in this view ; 
the people forms a whole, the good and evil acts of its mem- 
bers are placed to its account. And absolute continence is 
indirectly meritorious in so far as it shows, by great and 
striking examples, that the impulses which often lead to ruin- 
ous excess can be mastered. Gratitude for this educative 
effect assumes the form of admiration. 

This at the same time explains why asceticism and a love 
of the world go hand-in-hand. We may find occasional 
examples of intemperance among a poor and uncivilized 
people, but not radical continence. Philosophical asceticism 
first appeared in the Hellenic world when the art of good 
living reached a high state of perfection. The Roman 
Empire was the soil on which Christianity found favorable 
conditions of development. The more sensuous a nation, the 
greater its admiration for the ascetic life. It is surely not 
accidental that the excitable Romance nations cling to Cath- 
olicism and celibacy and monachism, whereas temperance 
societies are common among the Germanic peoples, who are 
addicted to drink. — Moreover, even in particular individuals, 
an intensely sensuous nature is apt to seek refuge in asceti- 
cism. The man who is not exposed to temptation needs no 
heroic antidotes. 

From this it also follows that asceticism cannot become 
a universal ethical rule. It would defeat itself with both 
physical and psychological-aesthetical necessity : without 
its opposite there would be neither sense nor merit in it. 
The value of absolute continence and the admiration shown 
for it are conditioned by the fact that there are others who 
have not received the donum continentice, even in a moderate 
degree. The ascetic himself must recognize this; he cannot 
expect everybody to imitate him, nay, he cannot even say or 



490 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

intimate that his mode of life is better than that of others. 
He may, at most, deem himself fortunate for having escaped 
such task-masters as most persons constantly have near them 
in their impulses. A stern and haughty puritanism is not 
edifying; it arouses antagonisms. A man, however, who is 
gentle and humble in spirit, who asks nothing for himself 
but desires others to have everything that is good, even that 
which he denies himself, will gain the respect and confidence 
of all, especially of children of the world. Since he does not 
enter into competition with the world, he may become the 
repository of very worldly secrets, like Friar Lorenzo in 
Romeo and Juliet. In his novel, _Z~ Promessi Sposi, Man- 
zoni has drawn for us, in the person of Cardinal Borromeo, a 
wonderful picture of a man who renounces everything, 
and thereby obtains the greatest influence over others. — 
Moral preachers, spiritual as well as secular, are in the 
habit of complaining that no one will listen to them and 
give heed to their counsels. Man's hardness of heart has 
been the subject of their lamentations from the days of the 
old prophets down to the present. Perhaps the fault does not 
lie entirely with the hearers. If these preachers would only 
examine themselves as closely as others, they would perhaps 
occasionally find that it is not only their zeal for saving souls 
that actuates them ; the things which they cannot or dare not 
or do not wish to enjoy, they begrudge others, and so revenge 
themselves upon them for their own privations. He alone 
has a right to preach morality who is in the safe possession 
of a good that absorbs his whole soul, and is entirely without 
envy ; he that cannot without bitterness bear the sight of 
others enjoying what he desires to convince them is worthless, 
should first preach to himself. 1 

1 The Imitatio Christi admirably describes the true moral preacher and his 
opposite, the habitual moral grumbler, in the chapter " Of a Good and Peaceable 
Man." " First keep thyself in peace, and then shalt thou be able to make peace 
among others. A peaceful man doth more good than he that is well learned. 
A passionate man draweth even good into evil, and easily believeth the worst. 



SELF-CONTROL 4yi 

3. Unpretendingness or modesty is a modification of temper- 
ance, its inner form, as it were. It is moderation of desire as 
such, the moderation of the desire for wealth and fame, posi- 
tion and pleasure. Unassuming modesty consists in habitu- 
ally lowering one's pretensions to the level of one's fortunes. 
Its effect is contentment ; and hence it is the safest guide to 
happiness, just as its opposite, covetousness, or cupidity is the 
surest means to unhappiness. Everybody is complaining of the 
rarity of contentment and of the prevalence of discontent. 
Although the conception of a past golden age of universal 
happiness is an optical illusion, the growing discontent among 
the European peoples of the present is not an illusion. Dis- 
content increases in direct proportion with inordinate desire, 
for the development of which the conditions are unusually 
favorable in our age. We no longer have a settled population ; 
everybody is on the move. Several generations ago it was the 
rule for a person to remain in the surroundings into which 
he was born, during his entire life. Now everybody is en- 
gaged in fortune-hunting. The large cities are the centres of 
the chase, they excite and tempt everybody, and everybody 
visits them or lives in them, at least in the imagination ; every 
inhabitant of every little village has relatives in the city, a 
son in the army and a daughter at work. The metropolis is a 
large bazaar, in which thousands of desirable things constantly 
excite desire. These wares are intended for all ; it is purely 
accidental that not everybody can buy them ; you and I could 
own them and make use of them just as well as some one else 
who has accidentally drawn a prize in the lottery or won a 
fortune on the stock exchange. Class pride and class customs 

A good and peaceable man turneth all things to good. He that is in peace, is 
not suspicious of any. But he that is discontented and troubled is tossed with 
divers suspicions ; he is neither quiet himself, nor suffereth others to be quiet. 
He often speaketh that which he ought not to speak ; and leaveth undone that 
which it were more expedient for him to do. He considereth what others are 
bound to do, and neglecteth that which he is bound to do himself. First, there- 
fore, have a careful zeal over thyself, and then thou mayest justly show thyself 
zealous also of thy neighbor's good." 



492 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

have disappeared in the " anonymousness " of metropolitan 
life. The equality of the masses, manifested in the similarity 
of dress and appearance, gives all the same rights. Hence, 
since every one constantly sees before him the things which 
others possess and which he must do without, for no good 
reason whatever — horses, servants, drawing-rooms, villas, 
clothes, jewels, articles of food — why should not everybody be 
discontented ? — In addition to this, the dam which religion 
formerly erected against covetousness, has been as good as 
washed away in our times. The thought of the transitoriness 
of everything earthly and the promise of eternity have lost their 
hold upon mankind. This is as true of the cultured classes 
as of the masses. Formerly, the hope of a future life, though 
it was not very inviting to the rich and the pleasure-seekers, 
consoled mankind in general for the hardships of this life. 
But what can console men now who have no hope of a 
future reward, when fortune fails to give them what it 
bestows upon others ? 

Is there no curp for this disease ? We are referred to the 
church and the restoration of its power. If by this we mean, 
not external power, but an inner frame of mind, humility and 
piety, then there can be no doubt that the remedy would prove 
effective. Perhaps nothing but true inner religiousness can 
give us perfect peace in regard to earthly things. And I am 
fully convinced that the church has had and still continues 
to have a salutary influence. I know of nothing that has 
greater power to raise the heart above the vain and transitory 
things of life than the Gospels with their simple and grand 
facts, teachings, and symbols. A . proper interpretation of 
them will not fail to move the hearts even of our age ; and it 
certainly is a misfortune that a constantly increasing portion 
of our population is becoming farther and farther removed 
from the influences of these teachings. 

The Greek philosophers, too, suggested a remedy to their 
times, which suffered from the same disease : Abandon your 



SELF-CONTROL 493 

false conceptions, above all, the false view that happiness de- 
pends upon prosperity. What is troubling you is not the lack 
of certain things, but the belief that you cannot be happy 
without them. Are you really sure that their possession 
would make you happy ? But certain it is that it makes 
you unhappy to desire them and not to get them. Now, 
since it is in your power not to desire them, but not in your 
power to obtain them, how foolish you are for resolving to get 
them instead of resolving not to desire them. — Yes, you say, 
but it is not in my power not to desire them. — Have you 
ever really and earnestly made the trial ? Have you, who 
have devoted so much attention and energy to so many 
things, ever devoted your attention and energy to this art ? 
Have you reflected upon it and practised it ? Have you em- 
ployed the aids at your disposal? Have you ever turned 
your gaze away from the things which excite desire ? Have 
you studied others, who do without the same things and 
others besides, and still are of good cheer? Look at Socrates: 
he passes through the market-place and enjoys the sight of 
all the beautiful things because he does not need them. Have 
you ever appealed to your pride to help you against vanity ? 
Some one has been promoted, and you have been passed by ; 
you have not been invited to a dinner ; have you, Epictetus 
asks, paid the price ? Of course, the price is flattery and sub- 
serviency. Well, then, pay the price at which these things 
are sold, if you deem it wise ; but if you are unwilling to 
pay, well, then, is it not shameless in you still to wish to 
have them ? — And if theories alone will not help you, try 
practice, try asceticism : in order to break your own vanity 
and cupidity, voluntarily give up such things as you have. 
Strength grows with exercise ; you must merely give the will 
an opportunity to feel its power against desire. You are 
fighting for the best seat in the theatre, or on the train, and 
you become extremely angry because some one has beaten 
you ; now try to let the other man have it of your own free 



494 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

will, and note whether you have fared worse than usual, and 
then make the application to greater things. — And, above all, 
have you torn envy from your heart, the ugly weed, which 
poisons and tortures both body and soul ? If not, do it at 
once ; and do not believe that you have done anything for 
your happiness so long as you have failed in this. It is pain- 
ful to desire and not to obtain ; but much more painful is 
it to desire to have more than others and to be unable to 
bear the thought of others having anything. 

Again ; if you have children, help them. There are two 
ways of looking at life, one of which will certainly make it 
happy, the other unhappy. The first is the habit of regarding 
everything good that life yields as surpassing your expecta- 
tions, and every misfortune as falling below them ; the sec- 
ond is the reverse of this. You have it in your power to 
give your child either mood. Grant all his wishes, give him 
everything he sees, let him choose what he ought to eat and 
drink, what he ought to do and to leave undone, remove all 
obstacles from his path, bear his burdens for him, praise his 
ability and goodness ; in short, be all tenderness and devo- 
tion ; and you may be sure that he will, upon entering the 
world, find it hard and niggardly ; that he will be discon- 
tented and unhappy. If you are unwilling that this should 
happen, steel your own heart, and do not be afraid of being 
called an unnatural mother by all educated mothers. 

Not long ago I witnessed the following little incident : Once 
there were two little girls, perfectly healthy and cheerful, and 
blessed with the best of appetites. They went to visit an aunt, 
who loved them very much, and .did everything she could to 
please them. She used to ask them before each meal what 
they liked to eat, and when the meal was served, what they 
preferred to have. Before two weeks had passed, these two 
little girls no longer enjoyed their food ; one of them could n't 
eat this, the other could n't eat that ; their plates were always 
half full, and at the end of every meal they were discontented 



SELF-CONTROL 495 

and in tears. " How is it," asked the aunt, when the mother 
of the two girls came to see her, " that things are so different 
at home ? " "I will tell you," she answered ; " at home I never 
ask them what they want, and never give them as much as 
they call for." 

Happy the man whom Fate treats in the same way. He 
that is able to choose each day what to do and what not to 
do, he that can have as much as he desires to have, will soon 
tire of life. — Hence, be thankful that you do not get every- 
thing you ask for ; learn to desire, so Marcus Aurelius coun- 
sels you, not that things govern themselves according to 
your wishes, but that your wishes govern themselves according 
to the things. 

4. By the side of temperance Greek philosophy places 
courage? the ability to resist painful, dangerous, and terrible 
impressions by means of a rational will. The former is the 
normal conduct in respect of pleasure ; the latter, of pain and 
danger. We may, with Aristotle, define both virtues as a 
mean between two vices : temperance is the proper mean 
between insensitiveness to sensuous enjoyment and licen- 
tiousness ; courage the mean between abject cowardice and 
blind foolhardiness. 

When an animal finds itself threatened by a hostile attack, 
we may notice one of two things : either the attack arouses 
fear and impels it to flight ; or it produces rage and rouses it 
to defend itself. The latter behavior is peculiar to beasts of 
prey, the former to their victims. Both forms of action are 
evidently adapted to the animal's nature and mode of life ; 
the defenceless animal, whose body and temperament do not 
fit it for attack, strives to preserve itself by flight and con- 
cealment. Fear, which scents the danger from afar and 
impels the animal to rapid flight, is for it a useful natural en- 
dowment. The other quality, rage and ferociousness, is 
equally well suited to the beast of prey, which can defend 

1 [Stephen, chap. V., 2.— Tr.1 



496 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

itself ; it must constantly be on its guard, externally and inter- 
nally, against surprises and attacks; its preservation depends 
upon the success with which it solves this problem. 

Both modes of conduct are also found among men. There 
are men who run away like sheep at the first sign of danger. 
There are others, on the contrary, who, like beasts of prey, 
are straightway impelled to blind and ferocious attacks, when 
threatened or injured. Both modes of conduct are condemned 
by men, the former as cowardice, the latter as blind rage 
or foolhardiness. A different kind of behavior is required of 
man, and that is courage. That man is brave who, when 
attacked and in peril, neither blindly runs away nor rushes 
into danger, but retaining his composure, carefully and 
calmly studies the situation, quietly deliberates and decides, 
and then carries out his resolution firmly and energetically, 
whether it be resistance and attack, or defence and retreat. 
Prudence, therefore, constitutes an essential part of valor. 
A significant custom is said to have prevailed among the 
Spartans. Before the battle the king first offered sacrifices 
to the Muses, "presumably," says L. Schmidt, 1 "to implore 
them that his army might, even during the battle, retain the 
pure Apollinic freedom from wild passion." — The origin of 
this virtue might be explained biologically, as follows. The 
most dangerous enemy of man is man. In battle with this ad- 
versary courage has been acquired ; it is the means of de- 
fence against the most fearful weapon of attack, the intellect. 
Against this, neither blind flight nor blind aggression will 
avail, as is seen in the battle of man with animals. Fear 
carries the fleeing ones into his net, while rage brings the 
ferocious ones within range of his sword or gun. Such an 
enemy can be resisted only by means of the same weapon, 
the intellect, that is, by courage, by presence of mind in 
battle. The nature of courage is somewhat obscured in 
popular speech. According to the above explanation, courage 

1 Ethik der Griechen, II., 37. 



SELF-CONTROL 497 

may be exhibited in retreat as well as in resistance or attack. 
Popular usage is inclined to regard retreat under all circum- 
stances as incompatible with bravery. Perhaps the cause of 
this one-sided conception may be sought in the following. 
The battle of man with man is uniformly not a battle of the 
individual with the individual, but a battle of one collective 
body against another. It is evidently an essential condition 
of the strength of a company of fighters that the individual 
persevere in the struggle, at all hazards, and rather fall than 
$y ; the power of the collective body depends on the confi- 
dence which each individual has in the trustworthiness of 
the other. Courage is a social virtue. 

Martial courage is the first form in which this quality 
receives recognition, perhaps the very first virtue which wins 
admiration. Courage is originally the virtue, cowardice the 
vice, as the Greek and Roman usage of language attests. 
And youth has no sincerer regard for any virtue than for 
stern and shrewd, and especially magnanimous courage. 

As civilization advances, its importance diminishes. Civi- 
lization makes for peace. The individual does not have to 
protect himself by his own strength and courage, he enjoys 
the protection of the laws and the police. The Indian con- 
stantly carries his life in his hands. Even during the Middle 
Ages everybody bore arms, at least outside of the city walls. 
We have laid down our arms because we no longer need 
them. It is not improbable that we have thereby lost our 
inner readiness to defend our lives with the weapon in our 
hands. The average European could hardly dare to compete, 
individually, with the individual Indian or Bedouin in personal 
bravery. He is also inferior to them in bearing hardships. 
But what gives him his superiority is, besides the instruments 
of war, organization and discipline. These are the things 
which turn the scale in the great battles of civilized nations. 
The personal bravery of the individual soldier does not count 
for very much. Our entire civil and military education is 



498 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

little adapted to produce it; its main object is to develop 
discipline : obedience, however, is, to a certain extent, the 
opposite of courage. 

5. As civilization advances, other forms of resistance come 
to surpass martial courage in importance. Chief among these I 
mention what might be called civil courage, independence of 
thought, characterful self-assertion against the great pressure 
exerted by superior and inferior forces. Civilization has the 
tendency to create relations of dependence ; dependence upon 
men takes the place of dependence upon nature : dependence 
upon superiors and patrons, friends and fellow-partisans, 
customers and voters, society and public opinion. Depen- 
dence has the tendency to pervert the will : it inclines the 
individual to accommodate himself, to let things take their 
course, to obsequiousness, to cowardly self-denial, to falsehood 
in every form. So the moral duty arises to develop the inner 
power of resistance which calmly and firmly opposes every 
attempt to subject the individual to established customs 
and authority, which serves and remains loyal to truth and 
justice, regardless of whether such conduct brings favor and 
popularity or disfavor and contempt. To remain true to 
oneself, that is the aim of such ideal courage. No one can 
have it, the centre of whose life does not lie within himself ; 
whoever makes external things his ultimate goal cannot 
attain to inner freedom. Spinoza was, in his life and teach- 
ing, a great preacher of this doctrine of freedom. 

Another form of courage is perseverance or persistence, 
the power of the will to accept and continuously to endure all 
kinds of hardships and exertions, which are necessary to 
realize one's ends. It is the virtue of the working man. 
Martial courage was the virtue of the heroic age, persever- 
ance is the courage of the industrial age. It is in this virtue 
that the civilized man so immeasurably surpasses the savage. 
The savage is capable of great momentary exertions, but not 
of making a continued effort to overcome the small obstacles 



SELF-CONTROL 499 

in which all work consists. A partial reason for this is his 
inability to conceive far-reaching aims. Hence, as soon as the 
momentary pressure of want or of the natural impulse ceases, 
he yields to the law of inertia, which also governs living 
bodies. 

The love of order may also be regarded as a phase of 
perseverance, the habit of doing everything with business- 
like regularity : a very valuable quality, which procures for 
us freedom and tranquillity. The consequence of disorder is 
confusion, which begets fear and trouble. This is especially 
true of the tendency to procrastinate. When our work is 
done, we feel at peace, but when we put off our tasks, we are 
constantly fretting about them, and are finally forced to per- 
form them hastily and unsatisfactorily at an inopportune 
time. The man who is fifteen minutes late, suffers torture 
during the rest of the day. 

Patience, too, is related to perseverance. It is the ability 
to bear pain and suffering without being overcome by them. 
We may distinguish two aspects of patience : a somewhat 
passive patience, which bears sufferings without complaint 
and opposition, and the more active power of the soul, the 
ability to survive defeats, disappointments, and losses, and 
to begin life anew. — Patience is feminine courage. Both 
forms, especially the former, are more characteristic of women 
than of men ; women not infrequently display a remarkable 
capacity for enduring pain. This fact is evidently due to the 
natural difference of the sexes ; women are more experienced 
in all kinds of suffering than men. A man's nature is im- 
pelled to attack and defence : hence he finds it more difficult 
to yield to the inevitable. But active patience, too, the elastic 
resistance of the soul, is one of the most beautiful and valu- 
able qualities of the woman. It is harder for a man to get up 
again after he has met with misfortunes. A woman generally 
finds less difficulty in beginning anew ; she soon begins to hope 
and fear again, to work and strive ; she has a more flexible 



500 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

nature. Man's strength is more unbending and brittle. A 
woman is also better able to battle with long-continued troubles 
and obstacles ; when the man impatiently sinks beneath the 
load, she retains her equanimity and even her cheerfulness. 
For that reason woman is the born guardian of youth, the 
nurse of the sick, and the counsellor of old age. 1 

Great patience in suffering is the invariable mark of a noble 
character ; courage and perseverance may belong even to a 
selfish and malicious will. Patient resignation in suffering 
is a sign that the violent natural impulse to life, which rebels 
against suffering, has been broken and silenced by a higher 
will. This is why sufferings which are accepted by the heart 
and patiently borne are expiatory : think of the thief on the 
cross. 

6. A third form of self-control is calmness, the ability to 
control, by the rational will, such emotions as result from 
disturbances in our relations with our fellow-men : e.g., anger, 
vexation, ill -humor. To the lack of this virtue, and to envy 
and pride, are due most of the disagreeable annoyances which 
wear out the lives of so many men. Without the ability to 
overcome the inevitable petty collisions, intercourse with 
human beings becomes a constant torture. A man moves 
into an apartment house. On the floor above him lives a 
family with half-a-dozen children, who are making diligent 
use of the first right of man to use his hands and feet. The 
noise annoys him, he loses his temper and in his anger sends 
up a servant to say that the noise is intolerable, and that 
the gentleman downstairs insists upon greater quiet. What 
is the effect ? The family thus addressed resents such inter- 
ference, and henceforth lets the children make more noise 

1 Iua certain sense the greater capacity of women for bearing sufferings and 
misfortune is statistically shown by the smaller number of suicides among women. 
According to statistics, four times as many men commit suicide as women. 
Hence, if suicide is due to the person's inability to endure life any longer, we can 
say that the power of the woman to bear suffering is four times as great as that 
of the man. 



SELF-CONTROL 501 

than before. And now the battle is on : our friend begins to 
storm around himself, slams the doors, stamps with his 
feet, sends for the landlord and the police, and becomes an- 
grier and more displeased every day. In this way his house 
becomes a perfect hell. His mind is filled with venomous 
discontent ; and, like a vessel full to the brim, overflows with 
bitterness and poisonous malice at the slightest contact. 
And in the meanwhile he is deploring the baseness of man 
in general. 

And yet, no one, evidently, is to blame but himself, he 
is annoying and tormenting himself. He is reaping what 
he sowed ; wie der Grruss, so der Dank. Had he, instead of 
sending his servant, put on his best coat and called upon the 
mother of those children, whose feet are ruining his brain, 
had he confessed to her that he had an unfortunate failing, 
that he was extremely sensitive to sounds, and had he begged 
of her, to have a little regard for his feelings if she could ; 
had he likewise not forgotten, upon leaving, to praise the 
beauty and good behavior of her children and to admire 
her taste in furnishing her home : everything would have 
been so different. In at least nine cases out of ten — and 
such a probability makes it worth a trial — he would have 
been kindly received, and one-half or three-fourths of the 
disturbance would have been removed. He might then have 
prescribed for himself a little Stoic philosophy, to enable 
him to endure the remaining fraction. " If you are going to 
bathe," Epictetus admonishes us, " place before yourself what 
happens in the bath : some splashing the water, others push- 
ing against one another, others abusing one another, and 
some stealing: and thus with more safety you will under- 
take the matter, if you say to yourself, I now intend to bathe, 
and to maintain my will in a manner conformable to nature." 
So it is here: when you move into an apartment house, 
think of what will happen there ; the neighbor's dog will 
bark, his boys will romp around, his daughters will play 



502 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

on the piano ; if you cannot endure these things, do not move 
in, but build yourself a house outside of the city, be it ever 
so modest. But if you must move in, tell yourself before- 
hand that you must, and yield to the inevitable. 

To do all this you need not even have any love for human- 
ity — that, of course, would make it easier for you ; it is 
simply a matter of prudence. However righteous your anger 
may be, suppress it; anger will destroy your life and 
happiness. When people try to make you angry, say: I 
shall not allow myself to be made angry, for I shall be the 
one to suffer for it. 

Indeed, it is very strange : we know that we must always 
adapt ourselves to the nature of the things which we desire 
to subject to our purposes; only when it comes to human 
beings do we seem to forget it. A stone is in my way, I 
do not scold it, but walk around it or push it aside. A 
watch or a machine is out of order ; we do not beat it, but 
inquire into the cause, or hand it over to an expert to mend 
the defect. But when a human being fails to do our bidding, 
when a neighbor displeases us, or a friend acts in a manner 
which we do not consider right, when a pupil does not know 
his lesson, or the soup does not taste right, we get angry and 
scold. As though abuse and anger were the panacea for 
governing human souls ! A human soul is of all things in 
the world the most complicated and most difficult to handle ; 
and hence the art of governing souls is the hardest of all 
arts. And since it is the most important art for our happi- 
ness, it surely deserves to be studied with greater care. The 
most important thing in this art, however, is the ability to 
retain one's composure ; only calm and prudent investigation 
will succeed in discovering the causes of the trouble, and not 
until these have been found can the proper attempts be made 
to remedy it. However this may be brought about, whether 
by instruction, example, counsel, encouragement, assistance, 
admonition, entreaty, threats, punishment, — under all cir- 



SELF-CONTROL 503 

cumstances, Bacon's word will hold good that he alone can 
rule nature who obeys her. Any one, of course, can get 
angry and scold, but this is merely a confession of helpless- 
ness, and does not tend to improve matters ; nay, it is apt to 
make them worse. Even where punishment is the proper 
remedy, it will be all the more effective, if administered 
calmly and firmly. 1 

7. The fruit of self-control, which reaches its completion in 
the virtues of temperance and unpretendingness, courage and 
perseverance, patience and tranquillity, is inner peace and 
cheerfulness of mind, Democritus's einQv^Ca, the tranquilitas 
animi of the Stoics. This is not only in itself the greatest 
part of human happiness, but also the source of real human 
pleasures. The calm and cheerful soul is capable of the 
quiet pleasures of reflection : the forms of things are mir- 
rored best in the tranquil lake. The social duties thrive in the 
contented heart, — justice, veracity, tenderness, benevolence, 
faithfulness ; and from these in turn spring the joys which 
friendship and domestic happiness yield. 

This is the path which leads to self-preservation and wel 
fare. Wisdom is needed to find and follow it. Hence all 
peoples praise wisdom as the great guide of life. The royal 
sage of the Hebrews mingles his praises with those of the 
Greek philosophers : " Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, 
and the man that getteth understanding. For the mer- 
chandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and 
the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious 
than rubies : and all the things thou canst desire are not 

1 C. G. Gordon, the hero of Khartoum, who quelled the great Taiping in- 
surrection in China, one of the greatest tamers of men that ever lived, once 
wrote : The older we grow the hetter we learn to treat human heings as though 
they were lifeless objects ; that is, to do for them what we can without caring 
whether they will thank us or not. So God acts towards us. He lets the rain 
fall on the just and the unjust, he seldom meets with gratitude, he is most often 
forgotten. (In an anonymous biography, C. G. Gordon, the Hero of Khartoum, 
1885, p. 178.) [I have not been able to obtain the book, and cannot therefore 
quote the passage exactly. — Tr.J 



504 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

to be compared unto her. Length of days is in her right 
hand; and in her left hand riches and honor. Her ways 
are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She 
is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her : and happy 
is every one that retaineth her. The Lord by wisdom has 
founded the earth ; by understanding hath he established the 
heavens." 1 

1 [Proverbs, IIL, 13-19.] 



CHAPTER in 

THE BODILY LIFE* 

1. The function of the body is to serve as the organ and 
symbol of the soul. There is no difference of opinion concern- 
ing this practical estimate of the two phases of man's nature. 
Even the materialist, who regards the soul as a passing func- 
tion of matter, will accept our proposition ; for him too the 
body is the servant of the soul. Every one is likewise agreed 
as to what constitutes a good servant. To accomplish and 
endure much and to demand little, — these are the qualities 
which we all consider valuable in a servant. These also 
determine what is desirable in a body ; the healthy, strong, 
and hardened body endures much and wants little : the 
sickly, weak, and pampered body does little and makes great 
demands. Hence follows the rule of duty : Do what is suited 
to preserve and increase the health and strength of the body ; 
avoid what impairs and weakens it. — The other function of 
the body is to express or symbolize psychical life. Beauty 
and grace are the visible corporeal manifestations of a good 
and beautiful soul. Grace is acquired beauty ; the quiet se- 
curity of the soul which is master of itself, is reflected in 
quiet, steady, and appropriate movements. Hence follows 
the rule of duty : Educate the body, so that it may appear in 
this visible world as a pleasing expression of the invisible 
beauty of the soul. 

1 [Rousseau, Emile ; Porter, Part IL, ch. III. ; Hoffding, XI. ; Wundt, Etkik, 
Part I., ch. III., 2, 3 ; Fowler and Wilaon, Part II., ch. I. ; Runz«, §§ 9 f. ; Dornar, 
pp. 336-356.— Tr.] 



506 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

It must be left to dietetics and gymnastics to develop these 
general formulae into a system of rules. Huf eland's Macro- 
biotic, a simple book, full of common-sense, may be mentioned 
as giving a brief presentation of the subject. I shall merely 
touch upon a few phases of the problem. 

2. Let us first consider the question of nutrition. 1 It is 
characteristic of human beings to prepare their food artificially; 
and they do it universally with the aid of fire. The use of 
fire for this purpose plays an important part in the emancipa- 
tion of man from nature. Whereas the animal is limited to 
the territory producing the plants or animals upon which it 
feeds, and is itself a product thereof, man has made himself 
lord of the earth ; everywhere he finds what may, with the 
help of fire, be converted into food. In other respects also, 
the use of fire in the preparation of food has exercised an 
important influence upon the development of human life. 
Wundt calls attention to the fact that by necessitating the 
common preparation of certain foods, it at the same time led to 
their common consumption ; to it we owe the origin of the com- 
mon meal at the hearth. With the meal is connected the sac- 
rificial worship, growing out of the funeral feasts ; the hearth 
becomes the altar. The meal coming at regular intervals 
and dividing the day, also leads to the first division of time. 
The child still receives its first lessons in the discipline of the 
animal desires by governing its appetite according to the 
meals. 

Let me add a word or two concerning degeneracy in nourish- 
ment. In emancipating himself from the natural guidance of 
instinct, which controls and likewise preserves the animal, 
man exposes himself to aberrations. The palate is stimulated 
by artificially prepared food, and the reception of food excites 
pleasure even when it is not needed. Gluttony and hoggish- 
ness are universally characterized by the perversion of the 

1 [Spencer, Ethics of Individual Life, ch. IV. ; Brillat-Savarin, Phytiologie 
dugout. — Tr.] 



THE BODILY LIFE 507 

organs of nutrition into organs of pleasure. It appears that 
such abuse never occurs among animals, but that among 
human beings it is common to all ages and all peoples. Travel- 
lers bring us horrible reports of the coarse forms of gluttony 
practised by uncivilized tribes. All of these seem also to have 
hit upon the manufacture of intoxicating liquors, or to have 
introduced them into their countries from abroad. 

Everybody knows to what extent the life of modern civilized 
nations is devastated by drunkenness. It seems that the Ger- 
manic nations have from time immemorial been more predis- 
posed to this vice than the Romance peoples ; which is perhaps 
to be explained by conditions of climate. In certain parts of 
Germany a considerable part of the male population is directly 
ruined by drunkenness ; and there is no country in which this 
vice does not cause the most serious disturbances. The imme- 
diate effects of drunkenness are these ; the economic life 
becomes unsettled, family-life is neglected and destroyed, the 
moral-spiritual life brutalized and debauched. Pauperism, 
crime, a host of diseases, insanity, suicide, degeneracy of off- 
spring, follow in its melancholy wake. 1 

The conviction is growing among earnest and thoughtful 
men that a very serious danger here confronts the future pro- 
gress of civilized peoples. How shall we meet it? 2 

In 1881 the German government introduced a bill in the 
Reichstag, making offensive drunkenness in a public place 
punishable (by a fine not to exceed sixty marks and fourteen 
days in jail, the penalty to be increased in case of repetition). 
The permission was also asked for the temporary confinement 
of habitual drunkards in asylums. The measure did not pass. 
During the discussion of the bill the objection was raised, 
among others, that the passage of such a law would lead to 

1 Compare A. Baer, Der Alcoholismus, seine Verbreitnng, und seine Wirkung 
t uf den individuellen und sozialen Organismus, sowie die Mittel ihn zu bekampfen, 
1878. [See the articles on Temperance, Abstinence, Prohibition, in Johnson's 
Cyclopedia. — Tr.] 

* [Spencer, Ethics oflnd. Life, ch. VI. — Tk.] 



5U8 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

the unlawful restriction of personal liberty. I do not know 
whether the objection had anything to do with the defeat of 
the proposition, but it seems to me that it must be regarded 
as thoroughly unsound. Drunkenness incapacitates a man 
for rational deliberation, but it does not hinder him from 
acting irrationally. Hence it leads him to treat others irra- 
tionally and possibly to abuse them ; indeed the causal 
connection between drunkenness and crime, especially crime 
against persons, is a well known fact. Therefore, it is un- 
doubtedly an attack against the security of others to put one- 
self into such a condition ; even the threats and the fears 
to which, for example, the wife and children of the drunkard 
are subjected, constitute a serious wrong against which the 
law has an absolute right to proceed. And it is no less 
beyond cavil that society has the right to proceed against 
habitual drunkenness by confining individuals in asylums. 
We have as much right to isolate and to cure the alcoholist 
who has lost his will power, in order to protect him and his 
surroundings against the consequences of his disease, as we 
have to incarcerate the maniac against his will, that he may 
not injure himself and others. Of course, it goes without say- 
ing that great care would have to be exercised to hinder the 
arbitrary and unjust execution of the law. 1 

Hence, it seems utterly unwarranted to oppose such a law 
on the score of personal liberty. The freedom temporarily to 
put oneself in a state of moral and intellectual insanity can- 
not be regarded as one of the universal rights of man. 

1 In his text-book on Psychiatry, Krafft-Ebing defines intoxication as a volun- 
tarily-produced, temporary state of insanity. (1,35.) He shows in detail its 
similarity to forms of mental disease. Its beginning is marked by a slight mania- 
cal excitation, with exalted self-consciousness, and apparent intensification of vital 
functions. The continued use of alcohol is followed by a gradual decline, as in 
the case of the violent maniac : at first the aesthetic and moral presentations, 
which in health have a controlling and inhibiting influence, disappear; the 
drunkard " lets himself go," ignores the rules of decency and morality, becomes 
cynical and brutal. A state of complete exhaustion follows, consciousness is 
deranged, illusions and hallucinations appear, his speech becomes thick and un- 
certain, his walk tottering, just as in the case of the paralytic ; the end is a deep 
and idiotic stupor. fSee Zola's powerful novel L'Assommoir. — Tr.1 



THE BODILY LIFE 509 

Nevertheless, I doubt whether the defeat of the measure, at 
least of the part relating to the punishment of public drunken- 
ness, is to be deplored. In addition to the injustice or the 
harmfulness of a law, another decided objection may be urged 
against it, and that is its inefficacy. It is to be feared that a 
penal law against drunkenness would, as matters now stand, 
have very little effect ; it would not contribute much to the 
improvement of morals, and that after all is the end to be 
desired. 

The efficacy of such a law would essentially depend upon 
its ability to render drunkenness disgraceful in the eyes of the 
public, which it is not at present. But I doubt very much 
whether that can be done so long as public opinion, not only 
of the lower classes, but also of so-called good society, judges 
this vice so leniently. Several years ago a riot occurred in a 
German university town, which for several days kept the 
entire city in a state of great excitement. The reason which 
induced a part of the student body to revolt was a police- 
regulation ordering the saloons to be closed at twelve o'clock 
midnight : a highly beneficial measure, one would imagine, 
for all the parties concerned, for the beer-drinkers as well as 
for the other inhabitants of the city. It was, however, re- 
garded by the liberty-loving youth as an intolerable restriction 
of their personal freedom, or perhaps also of their academic 
freedom, about which some rather curious ideas exist. Now 
imagine these same defenders of liberty five or ten years later 
pronouncing judgment upon drunkenness in court ! I can- 
not make myself believe that the law administered by such 
representatives would exercise an educative influence upon 
public morality. Or will they have changed by that time ? 
Perhaps ; but even then would not their own past rise up 
against them ? And do they actually change, as a general 
thing ? The hilarity which one of the advocates of personal 
liberty succeeded in arousing among the representatives of the 
people, when the measure mentioned above was discussed in 



510 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

the Reichstag, was not calculated to remove all doubts con- 
cerning the high gathering's respect for sobriety. When this 
speaker remarked that the drunken men whom he met on the 
streets were for the most part elderly gentlemen with white 
cravats, and that the sight of them did not arouse in him feel- 
ings of anger, but sympathetic cheerfulness, his statement did 
not arouse anger in the meeting either, at least there was no 
perceptible sign of it, while the sympathetic cheerfulness 
mentioned by him, which goes by the name of general hilarity 
in the reports of parliamentary proceedings, became plainly 
audible. And the long and sentimental accounts of the 
drinking bouts (Kommerse) of old gentlemen, followed by the 
KaterfruhstucTc, which so frequently appear in all our news- 
papers, are evidently written with the intention of exciting 
good-humored laughter in their readers. 1 

So long as " good society " treats itself so leniently in these 
matters, it will have every reason to doubt its ability to cure 
" bad society " of drunkenness, by means of penalties. The 
law cannot create customs, it can merely protect existing 
ones. 

May we expect an improvement of custom in the future ? 
Perhaps the case is not hopeless. A student of history might 
reach this conclusion. At the beginning of the modern era 
the habit of bestial drunkenness prevailed at the courts of 
princes and among the nobility. Call to mind the chronicles 
of Hans von Schweinichen. The vice was gradually sup- 
pressed in these circles during the seventeenth and eigh- 
teenth centuries, through the influence of the French courts. 
From the courts, however, it had spread to the middle classes 
of society ; it seems to have reached its climax in the aca- 
demic world during the second half of the seventeenth cen- 

1 W. Martins (Der Kampf gegen den Alkoholmissbrauch, 1884, pp. 40 ff.) gives 
us an idea of the feeling of the public in reference to drinking and drunken- 
ness. He also publishes the bill mentioned above, and the constitution of the 
Society against the Abuse of Spirituous Liquors, and many other items of 
interest in the history of the crusade against drunkenness. 



THE BODILY LIFE 511 

tury. Here, too, it has had to give way, since the middle of 
the eighteenth century, to the more refined manners which 
gradually came to prevail, owing to the development of higher 
spiritual aspirations. The habit still persists with great stub- 
bornness in certain academic circles, but I believe we can say 
that it is really no longer considered good form. Among offi- 
cials and the substantial citizens, drunkenness, though judged 
rather mildly in individual cases, is not regarded as one of 
the legitimate habits of life. At present it is largely confined 
to the lower and lowest strata of society, into which it has 
gradually found its way since the seventeenth century. We 
may measure its growth there by the increase in the manu- 
facture of brandy, which has reached an enormous extent in 
the nineteenth century. Will the plague, after having passed 
through the body politic from the top to the bottom, leave it 
again ? Perhaps we may hope so. When the higher classes 
of society, who set the example in all things both good and 
bad, take the lead in this matter and repudiate drunkenness, 
it will gradually lose caste among the masses. Whatever is 
no longer regarded as " refined," is doomed ; so soon as it be- 
comes " vulgar " it is cast out. The progress in this direction 
may perhaps be hastened by the fact that drinking assumes a 
more and more brutal and repulsive form, under the influence 
of the whiskey-habit ; there is some poetry in wine, and, if 
need be, also in beer, but there is no poetry in whiskey. So 
soon as public opinion comes to look upon intoxication as de- 
cidedly vulgar and disgraceful, it will be possible to combat 
what is left of the old vice by laws and penalties. 

In the meanwhile, we have here a wide field for the work 
of societies ; but we must not forget the good old rule : First 
sweep before your own door. The beer-drinking habit of the 
academic and non-academic Philistines, which is so common 
in Germany, and the worship of the belly to which the rich 
and aristocratic are addicted, are equally degrading. Can any 
one who, day after day, from morning till night, for hours 



512 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

and hours, sits in the beer-shops, enveloped by tobacco 
smoke, and listens to the selfsame stupid talk or plays the 
same old tiresome game of Skat, and who at last carries 
home with him an empty and stupefied head, do any serious 
and earnest work ? Can any one who, day after day, revels in 
the pleasures of the table at dinners and suppers, throw his 
soul into anything ? Will not a feeling of lazy satiety take 
possession of him and extinguish all higher aspirations ? 

Now what remedies shall we employ against drunkenness 
among the masses ? All effective measures will, perhaps, aim 
chiefly at two things : the removal of temptation and the 
discovery of a suitable substitute for whiskey and the dram- 
shop. The so-called public coffee-houses, which were originally 
established in England and afterwards on the Continent, at 
first by societies and subsequently as private enterprises, 
have made a good beginning in the latter respect. Moreover, 
every improvement that is made in the conditions of life 
will tend to counteract alcoholism among the lower classes. 
Wretchedness and want, insufficient food, poor habitations, 
injurious labor, over-exertion, indeed an uncomfortable mode 
of existence, constitute its favorite soil ; the effect desired 
is the temporary stupefaction, the blunting of the sensibility, 
caused by the use of alcohol. The so-called Gothenburg sys- 
tem has happily succeeded in diminishing the temptation in 
Sweden. In 1865 a stock company was formed in Gothen- 
burg which obtained possession of all the dramshop-licences 
of the city, and considerably decreased the number of drink- 
ing places. It then placed these saloons in charge of its own 
employees and limited the sale of liquors to a very short 
period of the day. The net profits, minus the usual rate of 
interest, are turned into the city treasury. The system, which 
has been adopted in many cities throughout the North, not 
only directly diminishes the opportunity for drinking, but also 
removes some of the conditions encouraging drunkenness, 
for example, the saloon-atmosphere and the landlord's love 
of gain. 



THE BODILY LIFE 513 

Here, moreover, the State too may interfere, without hesi- 
tation, by employing the proper safeguards. The legislature 
has finally resolved to limit the gambler's freedom to ruin 
himself, by closing the gambling-houses ; it has passed laws 
commanding the utmost care in the sale of poisons, and may 
consequently take precautionary measures against, and limit 
the sale of, the poison which claims a thousand times more 
victims than all the others put together. A Dutch law of 
the year 1881 contains some very stringent regulations ; it 
limits the number of dramshops in proportion to the popu- 
lation, and grants licenses only for one year at a time ; it also 
punishes drunkenness. The regulations which call the land- 
lord to account for encouraging excess are also wise. And 
the demand of the temperance societies that no one be legally 
bound to pay debts incurred by the purchase of alcoholic 
liquors surely deserves approval. Finally, it is also feasible to 
increase the tax on whiskey, and thereby to limit its consump- 
tion, or at least to hinder its increase. To be sure, these 
restrictions are opposed in Germany by quite influential 
circles, which have a selfish interest in increasing the sale of 
whiskey. But is it not, perhaps, conceivable that the masses 
will some day see that the whiskey-drinker is making a volun- 
tary tax-payer of himself and is at the same time paying trib- 
ute to the whiskey-distilling landowner ? Will not the German 
social democracy some day, perhaps, adopt abstinence from 
spirituous liquors as one of its weapons against the existing 
order of society ? It would not in my opinion be the worst, 
nor the least effective weapon. The English trades-unions 
have made the beginning in the fight against alcohol. The 
leaders of the labor movement in that country are all advo- 
cates of total abstinence. 

Let me say a few words regarding another stimulant, 
tobacco, which entered upon its triumphant march through 
civilized Europe simultaneously with brandy. It is, as is well 
known, one of the guest-gifts of the new world to the old. If 



514 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

ever the Middle Ages could be supposed to pass judgment 
upon modern times, they would most likely say, in revenge 
for the many evil things said of them : Three things charac- 
terize the modern era : whiskey, tobacco, and the French dis- 
ease (die Franzosen'), as a certain affliction was called which 
made its appearance in Germany at about the same time. 
The modern times, they might proceed, are fond of boasting 
that their civilization is superior to that of the Middle 
Ages. Now if civilization consists of these three things — 
a view which the " savages " outside of Europe to whom the 
Europeans have brought " civilization " might easily be led 
to take — then, the Middle Ages might say, our own lack of 
civilization need not trouble us very much. Indeed, " it is a 
very remarkable fact that a barbarous Indian custom, the 
custom, namely, of drawing the smoke of the dry leaves of 
a narcotic plant into the mouth by means of a tube or a 
twisted roll, and then puffing it out again, or of stuffing the 
same leaves in pulverized form into the nose, should have 
been transmitted by the redskins to white, yellow, and 
black men all over the world, and should have taken root." 2 
Tolstoi', too, has pondered over this strange fact. In a little 
pamphlet, Why Do Men Stupefy Themselves ? he gives his 
answer : In order to stupefy their consciences ; for which 
tobacco and alcohol are especially fitted. There is a great 
deal of rhetorical exaggeration in the reply ; but it likewise 
contains a germ of truth. Why does the student smoke and 
drink ? Because he likes it ; or because he does not know 
what to do with himself, and so deludes himself about his 
empty and burdensome life ? 

It is estimated that the German nation spends about three 
hundred million marks for tobacco annually. I certainly do 
not desire to begrudge any one his pleasures ; but could we 
not buy something better for three hundred million marks 

1 V. Hehn, Kulturpjianzen und Hausthiere in ihrem Ubergang aus Asien nack 
Europa, p. 449. 



THE BODILY LIFE 515 

than smoke ? If, for example, this sum were spent in im- 
proving and beautifying our homes, then, at least, the three- 
fourths of our people who are only passively interested in 
smoking would be the gainers ; and perhaps even the smokers 
themselves would not lose anything. For I confess that I 
am still in doubt, after many years of experience, as to 
whether smoking causes more enjoyment on the whole than 
annoyance. Was any father ever pleased to see his sons or 
his daughters acquire the habit ? 

Furthermore, what was said above about drinking is also 
true of smoking : after it has become universal, it will become 
vulgar, and then it will be abandoned, first by the privileged 
classes and afterwards by all. Has this process already be- 
gun ? It seems to me, there are more students to-day who 
do not smoke than there were thirty years ago. 

Another sign of the times is vegetarianism, which has made 
many converts of late. I do not believe that everybody will 
or ought to follow its standard. There are most likely sound 
reasons for the consumption of animal food beside vegetable 
food, and it is on the whole indispensable. I also doubt whether 
abstention from meat would, as the enthusiasts predict, lead 
to the extermination of all vices and ills. And as for the 
animals in whose behalf we are appealed to to abstain, — why, 
the abstention from meat would prove disastrous to them ; the 
animal at least " with the rose-colored skin, whose cries are 
so much like human cries" (Tolstoi), would be doomed by 
the triumph of vegetarianism. On the other hand, the move- 
ment is evidently the expression of a desire for a more beauti- 
ful, more spiritual, more human form of life ; and voluntary 
abstention from animal food (the involuntary abstention is not 
wanting, as we know) cannot fail to have beneficial results, 
under certain circumstances. 

3. Let me add a few words concering habitation * and cloth- 
ing. The dwelling, originally a protection against heat and cold 

1 [See also Oettingen, Morahudistik, § 34. — Tr.] 



516 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

as well as against hostile attacks, has gradually far outgrown 
its original purpose : the cave, the tent, the hut, the house, the 
burg, the city, mark the stages of its evolution. Its mission 
has been enlarged so as to embrace the whole of civilized life. 
What clothing is to the individual, the domicile is to the 
family. Within the walls of the house the family finds pro- 
tection against all kinds of annoyances, and seeks refuge from 
inquisitive curiosity and insatiate greed. In the home it 
reveals its character; the occupation, the mode of life and 
thought of the family, are expressed in the form, furniture, 
and decoration of the house. The memories of the past, both 
joyful and sorrowful, cling to it, and so the dwelling becomes 
the necessary framework of the family history. It is no less 
apparent that the development of great historical institu- 
tions is closely connected with the evolution of the home : 
without the dividing walls of the individual's own hut, we 
cannot imagine the separation of the particular families from 
the original herdlike unity of the horde. The evolution of 
property-rights is doubtless also closely related to the same 
dividing walls. Moreover, by the side of the human dwell- 
ing erected by the individual rises the house of the gods, the 
temple, which has proved so stimulating to religion and the 
arts. The temple has also had a great influence, as Wundt 
remarks, upon the evolution of the sense of justice. The 
peace of God made the temple the refuge for fugitives. The 
temple-peace reacted upon the development of the house- 
peace : the gods avenged its breach, whether the offence were 
committed against the host or against the guest. Again, the 
first notions of international law owed their origin to the 
reverence which the tribe felt for the temples of kindred 
gods. 

One of the most deplorable results of the recent develop- 
ment of social life is the forced abandonment by larger and 
larger portions of the population of the dwelling as a perma- 
nent home for the particular family, and the crowding together 



THE BODILY LIFE 517 

of great masses of people, who are unknown to each other, 
into the tenement and apartment houses of our large cities. 
Even the wealthy family suffers serious loss in this respect, 
being deprived of its peace and comfort, its freedom of move- 
ment, its pleasure of possession, its feeling of neighborliness, 
and the love of home. And among the lower classes these are 
not the only disadvantages. The overcrowded condition of 
the houses tends to endanger the life and health, happiness, 
morality, and domestic feeling of the occupants. When one 
family possesses but a single room, which it shares with sub- 
tenants and lodgers, real human life is no longer possible. 1 
It would be a great blessing if the modern means of transpor- 
tation could be so perfected as again to disperse the crowds 
of people whom they have poured into the large cities. Many 
families, who are at present living in crowded tenement- 
houses, to their great injury, could, even now, if they so 
desired and ceased regarding a bad habit as a natural neces- 
sity, occupy their own homes in the suburbs. Here, again, 
the wealthier classes must inaugurate the reform by forming 
better habits themselves. 2 

The original purpose of clothing 8 was partly to protect, 
partly to decorate the body and to reveal the importance of 
the wearer. Its negative object was to conceal the animal 
portions of the body, leaving only the face, the symbol of the 
spiritual powers, uncovered. Dress has retained this dual 
nature in the vicissitudes of historical life. The costume 
symbolizes rank and office, age and sex, joy and sorrow, tem- 
perament and mode of thought, time and people. By means 
of clothing the historical and social position of the individual 
is constantly impressed upon him and his surroundings. In- 

1 [See Rupprecht, Mensch und Wohnung in Wechselbeziehung ; Laspeyres, 
Tiber den Einfluss der Wohnungsverhaltnisse auf die Moralitdt der arbeitendtn 
Classen. — Tr.] 

2 Die Wohnung snot der armeren Klasaen, Schriften des Vereins fur Sozialpolitik, 
vol. I., XXX.-XXXIL, 1886. 

8 [See also Jhering, voL II., 311-329. — Tr.] 



518 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

deed, we may say that dress is so essential that historical life 
and social order cannot be imagined without it ; naked men 
are unhistorical men. Sameness of exterior marks brutes as 
unhistorical beings, dissimilarity in dress is the outward 
manifestation of historical and social beings. Hence, histori- 
cal changes in the life of nations reveal themselves in changes 
of costume ; try to imagine Luther in a swallow-tail coat and a 
white cravat, or Goethe with a moustache and a cut-away, and 
you will see that dress is as characteristic of man as an his- 
torical being as its skin is of the animal. — The abolition of the 
old class distinctions and the levelling tendency of the nine- 
teenth century clearly manifest themselves in the disappear- 
ance of class costumes. On the other hand, the dress of the 
state, the uniform, has become more prominent ; distinctions 
spontaneously created by society are giving way to distinc- 
tions made by the state. Furthermore, the uniform is an ex- 
cellent means of uniforming and controlling the inner man. 
It compels the wearer to represent the office and to obey 
orders ; he cannot retreat, he must seem to be what the uni- 
form proclaims him to be, and so becomes it. What would 
an army be without uniforms ? 

The difference between costume and fashion consists in 
this : the latter is an arbitrary invention of particular individ- 
uals and lasts only for a short time. Its climax is marked by 
the complete decline of costume. Fashionable attire differ- 
entiates its wearer, makes a " distinguished " person of him, 
not so much because it is a sign of taste, wealth, or costliness, 
but because it creates the impression that he is a leader in 
society or that he stands close enough to the leaders to notice 
the changes immediately and to keep pace with them ; hence, 
also, the need of rapid changes. Fashion is the feminine 
form of sport or speculation, and is, like all sport, capricious 
and tyrannical, stimulating its followers to do their best. 
The health and welfare of many a woman, the peace and 
happiness of many a home, are sacrificed to this tyrant without 



THE BODILY LIFE 519 

a murmur. Should the psychologist succeed in inventing a 
process for the transformation of psychical forces — as the 
physicist has for changing thermal or electrical forces 
into motion — and should the process ever succeed in con- 
verting but one-half of the energy which the women who 
obey the dictates of fashion expend in destroying their com- 
fort, welfare, and freedom, into other forces of self-sacrifice, 
the invention would presumably produce a greater increase in 
real happiness among civilized humanity than all the inven- 
tions of this century put together. 

4. Another important part of dietetics is the development 
and exercise of bodily powers. Life is, according to Aristotle, 
action ; the body deteriorates when it cannot act. These 
powers are exercised in two ways : in play and in work. 1 
Work is the exercise of powers for the sake of an external end ; 
in play the activity is an end in itself, it has no end outside of 
itself, it is free activity ; while work is constrained or unfree 
action. Play is especially characteristic of youth. In the 
life of the adult it is overshadowed by work ; but it is not 
wanting here and cannot be wanting without depriving life of 
an essential element. A country consisting entirely of fertile 
cultivated fields would not wholly please us ; we should miss 
the heaths and the forests, the moor and the wilderness, we 
should miss the poetry of freedom. Nor would a life please 
us that consisted solely of useful work : without play it would 
be without the poetry of freedom. 

It cannot be denied that with the advance of civilization, 
certain dangers are threatening life from this side. The sphere 
of play is becoming more and more restricted, and work is 
growing more monotonous and mechanical. In primitive 
stages of civilization work is freer and more varied ; it has 
something of the character and charm of play. That 

1 [See also Spencer, Ethics of Individual Life, chaps. II., III., VII.; Runze, §§ 
22 ff . ; J. E. Erdmann, Ernste Spiele ; Santayana, The Sense of Beauty > 
Bk. I. — Tr.] 



520 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

this is true may be seen from the fact that civilized 
men indulge in hunting and fishing as a kind of play and 
sport. Agricultural pursuits, too, are quite free and full of 
change ; each season yields new forms of action. The peasant 
practises a hundred arts, he handles numberless tools, and 
comes in daily contact with a thousand living and lifeless 
things. The work of the mechanic is not so free ; he is tied 
to his workshop ; the circle of his activities is narrow ; his 
work consists rather in the constant repetition of the same 
performance, which consequently becomes more mechanical. 
He is not so dependent on nature, upon the weather and the 
seasons, but more dependent upon human beings. All these 
features are greatly emphasized in the great metropolitan in- 
dustries. Labor becomes more specialized and monotonous, 
the working man is less dependent upon nature, but more 
dependent upon men; the natural laws which govern the 
life of the peasant are replaced by the laws of the factory 
and, in more modern times, by the laws of the state, which 
is interfering with these matters more and more. The 
metropolis resembles a great prison, in which men are 
confined within a narrow space and compelled to perform 
monotonous tasks ; the factory and the workshop, the store 
and the counting-room, the street and the home, — everything 
is so small and contracted ! How great is the sense of oppres- 
sion felt by the masses may be seen from the eagerness with 
which they seek the open when they are dismissed from their 
work-houses for a few hours on a Sunday. Even corporeal 
labor is apt to be somewhat mechanical and disappointing in 
these places. It is not accidental that art shuns the towns. 
The painter does not paint the people around him, the privy 
counsellor in his office, the teacher in his class, the book- 
keeper at his desk, the workman in the factory ; or when he 
does it, there is almost always something comical, or satirical, 
or sentimental in the picture. He prefers to seek the fisher- 
man on the sea, the huntsman in the forest, the shepherd on the 



THE BODILY LIFE 521 

mountains, the peasant in the fields, the carrier on the high- 
ways. Why ? Most likely because the latter live and act as 
free men out in the open air, while the former, the prisoners 
of labor, seem ludicrous or pitiable. 

The greatest sufferers are the young, and those of the 
higher classes perhaps suffer most because they are sub- 
jected to such conditions for a greater length of time. The 
truth that life is movement is especially applicable to the 
young. Their impulses are directed towards the exercise of 
bodily powers ; they desire to run and to climb, to jump and 
to dance, to build and to destroy. There is neither room nor 
opportunity for such action in the " flat." Free and unim- 
peded play is utterly impossible ; children living in large 
cities — as any one raised in the country cannot but^ note 
with surprise — know no games ; they have no play-grounds, 
no companions, and without these, games cannot thrive and 
grow. In polite society the child, instead of playing, is taken 
out for a stroll by the governess, or goes to the doll bazaar, 
or attends a children's party. But all these artificial things 
do not satisfy our children, and inasmuch as their love of 
movement and exercise cannot be suppressed, they are in the 
way in the metropolitan household. Under these circum- 
stances the school proves to be a veritable refuge : there they 
are taken care of and kept busy for a number of hours each 
day, and then a few more hours are consumed at home in 
preparing lessons. Among the upper classes a few more 
lessons in music and drawing are deemed indispensable, and 
afterwards a few more hours are devoted to novel-reading and 
card-playing. And so it happens that young people, from fif- 
teen to twenty years of age, at a time when the body needs 
most exercise, spend ten, twelve, or fourteen hours of the 
day sitting down, until the body gradually becomes accus- 
tomed to it, and the desire for exercise gives way to a gen- 
eral feeling of torpor. In this way the foundation is laid, 
during the period of youth, for the ailments by which the 



522 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

members of good society might easily recognize each other 
in case all the other characteristics should ever disappear: 
indigestion, nervousness, and near-sightedness. And all the 
physicians and watering-places in the world cannot restore 
what nature gratuitously bestows upon him who keeps her 
commandments : namely a state of healthy exhaustion and a 
sound sleep, a good appetite and good digestion. 

Matters are still worse among the female portion of the 
population than among the men. We may justify or at 
least excuse the men on the ground that society, as it is 
constituted, demands mental labor in addition to manual 
labor, and that this is so difficult and complicated as to make 
it impossible to train the mind properly without in some 
measure injuring the physical powers, and that therefore the 
hypertrophic development of the brain at the expense of the 
other organs must be regarded as a sacrifice to society. Such 
an apology can be offered, although the question may still be 
asked : Is not the cultivation of the mental faculties compat- 
ible with an harmonious development of the physical powers, 
and is not bodily health the precondition of all healthful 
activity ? With women, on the other hand, the case is dif- 
ferent. Spencer quotes a remark of Emerson's : The first 
requisite of a gentleman is to be a good animal. The thought 
expressed in this saying is especially applicable to women. 
Indeed, there is absolutely no excuse why the health of girls 
should be sacrificed to " culture." Their duties in after life 
will not, as a rule, demand that they be able to speak three or 
four languages, but that they be able to manage their house- 
hold affairs and educate their children, things with which 
good health, strong nerves, and good eyes have a great deal to 
do, and learning and languages desperately little. Nor can we 
accept the excuse that there is neither room nor opportunity 
for work in the city home ; young girls will always find plenty 
of opportunity for work and service in every household. 

This, of course, brings us to the very root of the evil. 



THE BODILY LIFE 523 

Work, that is, manual work, has become vulgar ; the honor of 
the educated daughter would be compromised by her doing 
housework — that is what the servants are for. It is not 
even genteel to wait upon oneself, much less upon others. 
I confess that I regard this custom of being waited upon at 
all times and under all circumstances as a highly efficient 
means of moral and physical degeneration. Sir John Lub- 
bock tells an interesting story. 1 A species of ants which 
were once warlike and vigorous conquered and made slaves 
of another species. They became so accustomed to be 
waited upon that they were finally absolutely unable to help 
themselves ; they could not even feed themselves, the slaves 
pushing the food into the masters' mouths ; the only thing 
which they still did without aid was to digest their food 
and to propagate their kind. Does not this sound like a 
satirical fable on good society ? A man that has been con- 
stantly surrounded from youth up by servants who do every- 
thing for him, will finally become so helpless and dependent 
that he cannot take a step, cannot tie or untie a knot, without 
others' assistance. However aristocratic such a state of de- 
pendence may be, it necessarily becomes a continual source 
of annoyance and discontent. " Tout notre mal vient de ne 
pouvoir etre seul," Chamfort once said ; I wonder whether he 
also had in mind our dependence on servants. 

In this respect, too, imperial Rome seems to be the model 
for our age. " The desire," says Friedlander, in his Sitten- 
geschichte Rom's? " to do, nay even to think, as little as 
possible, was exaggerated to such a degree as to become posi- 
tively ludicrous. Not only was the business of remembering 
the names of clients and followers assigned to nomenclators, 
there were even people who had slaves to remind them when 
to eat and when to take their baths. They are, says Seneca, 
so completely exhausted that it requires too much effort for 
them to know whether they are hungry or not. One of them 

1 [Ants, Bees, and Wasps, chap. IV.] 2 III., 124. 



524 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

asked, after being taken from his bath and placed upon a 
chair : Am I sitting down already ? A hundred years later 
Lucian reports, to his surprise and disgust, that it was cus- 
tomary for aristocratic Romans to be preceded by slaves 
whose business it was to inform them of any roughness or 
obstruction in the street." (No one was allowed to drive 
through the narrow streets of Rome during the day.) We 
see, the aging Romans were on the very point of falling into 
the habits of the ants mentioned above. 

Friedlander compares the slave-luxury of imperial Rome 
with the servant-luxury of modern Russia ; hence, a descrip- 
tion of the conditions in that country may not be out of place 
here. Leo Tolstoi thus portrays the wretched state which 
aristocratic Russian society regards as essential to its hap- 
piness : " They lack five essential conditions of human hap- 
piness : contact with nature, manual labor, family life, 
intercourse with human beings, health and a painless death. 
One of the chief requisites of happiness is a life in the open, 
in the sunlight, with plenty of fresh air, communion with the 
earth, with plants and animals. Man has always regarded 
the want of such things as a great misfortune. These people, 
however, see nothing but woofs, stones, and wood fashioned 
by human hands; they hear only the sounds of machines, 
equipages, cannons, and musical instruments ; they smell 
only spirituous liquors and tobacco smoke. Nor do their 
constant travels bring them any relief. They are carried 
in closed boxes ; wherever they go, they find the same stones 
and the same wood under their feet, the same curtains shut- 
ting out the light of the sun, the same lackeys, coachmen, 
and house boys, who will not allow them to come in contact 
with the earth, plants, and animals. Wherever they may 
happen to be, they are everywhere, like prisoners, deprived of 
the conditions of happiness." Another condition of happi- 
ness is labor, free manual labor, which stimulates the appetite 
and invites sleep. Here, too, it may be said that the more 



THE BODILY LIFE 525 

happiness any one has acquired, according to the opinion of 
the world, the more he lacks this second condition of happi- 
ness. " All those whom the world deems fortunate, high 
dignitaries and millionaires, either have absolutely nothing 
to do, like prisoners, and struggle in vain against diseases 
resulting from want of physical exercise — and battle with 
still less success against the ennui which consumes them ; 
or they do work which they despise, like the bankers, the pro- 
curors, the governors, and ministers and their wives, who buy 
gorgeous furnishings for themselves and their children." 1 

Count Tolstoi, who was destined by birth and rank to 
become a member of this society, had the rare courage, when 
he came to recognize the true meaning of life, to renounce 
such a lot, and to strive after true happiness. 

Many efforts are now being made in Germany, let me say 
in conclusion, to counteract these evils. Especial mention 
must be made of gymnastic exercises (Turneri), which, of 
course, as prescribed school exercises, are a poor substitute 
for free play. They came into vogue at the beginning of the 
century, with the rise of the military spirit among the Prus- 
sian people, and were originally aimed against every form 
of effeminacy. Jahn and his disciples desired to rid them- 
selves of the effeminate habits which resulted from French 
hyper-culture, by means of bodily exercise, hardships, and 
privations, and to regain the vigor of the German peasant. 
It was regarded as disgraceful to give way to any form of 
pampered sensuousness. Gymnastics have gradually come to 
be recognized as a part of the education of the young and 
likewise of military training. Perhaps the hope is not 
groundless that they will make even greater progress in the 
future. Should their hygienic necessity fail to gain for them 
the recognition which they deserve, their military utility may 
perhaps aid them. It is not likely that the European nations 
will be able permanently to bear the enormous burdens now 

1 My Religion, p. 210. 



526 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

imposed upon the community and the individual by the 
increase of military armaments, and it may ultimately become 
necessary to improve the instruction in gymnastics as well as 
the exercises connected with them, and to begin the general 
preparation for military service at an earlier age than at 
present. This plan would not only release the citizen from 
service during the later years of his life when the long inter- 
ruptions occasioned by military service are bound to cause 
him serious injury, but would have many other wholesome 
effects. The bodily exercises could be carried on, during the 
earlier years, in direct connection with the games of boy- 
hood ; they might be continued with zeal during the years 
intervening between the school days and the time of service, 
and thus serve to counteract disorderliness and dissipation ; 
and finally they might encourage and lead to the revival of 
public games for the young. And should these games, which 
formerly occupied an important place in our national life, be 
revived, and give rise to more beautiful popular festivals, the 
German people would derive from its gymnastic exercises the 
same benefits which the Greeks derived from theirs. 1 

Athletic sports are also coming into vogue of late years — 
races, boating, mountain-climbing, bicycling, and so forth. 
Though a great many evils are connected with these exercises, 
they have this good, that they promote the physical vigor of 
the upper classes of society. The English, the leaders in 
these things, owe no small part of their success in inter- 
national affairs to the robust strength which the gentry 
acquire through physical exercises and games. 

Still more recently efforts have been made to improve the 
manual skill of the young by giving them an opportunity to 
train themselves in the use of tools. It is to be hoped that these 
attempts will succeed. Practical skill is a desirable thing. 
I am convinced that at least ninety out of every hundred young 
people who attend our higher schools, would find more pleasure 

* [Runze, §§ 46, 47. — Tr.1 



THE BODILY LIFE 527 

in manual labor than in their school exercises. When nature 
formed the eve and the hand, she evidently did not intend 
them to be used in the way which is almost the only one known 
to our pupils : that is, for reading and writing. The Germans 
used to be very proud of their mechanical skill ; during the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries their cities were renowned 
above all others for the skill of their artisans. Leibniz once 
described the difference between the French and German na- 
ture as follows : Frenchmen, he said, make useless things, 
which are simply beautiful to look at, while Germans make 
things which not merely please the eye and satisfy the 
curiosity of great lords, but also accomplish something ; they 
bring nature under the control of art and lighten human 
labor. — As late as a century ago there were places in Ger- 
many in which sailors and peasants spent their leisure 
moments in carving ; at present the only things which many 
a man can handle, besides his knife and fork, are his pen and 
his cigar. May it not be possible for us to return to our first 
love ? And if by doing so we can get rid of the new-fashioned 
contempt for manual labor, that too will be a blessing ; in- 
deed, we should not regret the loss of some of the idealism 
which, in imitation of the ancients, affects to despise banausic 
work. I am rather afraid anyhow, that we are not making 
much headway in Hellenizing our people, and perhaps we have 
less reason to regret being honest Germans than old and new 
humanists try to make us believe. 

In conclusion, let me allude, in a few words, to the opposite 
of action, to rest and recreation. Activity means expenditure 
of energy ; hence nature demands that activity be suspended 
in order that the loss may be restored. Regular, long 
periods of rest for the entire psycho-physical system follow 
the changes of day and night. Jewish tradition has estab- 
lished an additional period of rest in the Sabbath. This is a 
highly beneficial institution, one that is so interwoven with 
our life and feelings as to seem like a part of the natural order 



528 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

itself. How was it possible for the Greeks and Romans tti 
live without their Sunday ? Finally, during more recent 
years, it has become customary for those engaged in tho 
higher pursuits to lay down their work for longer intervals ; 
vacations, which were originally confined to schools, have 
gradually extended to other circles. The need for them evi- 
dently grows as the work becomes more arduous, systematic, 
and monotonous. Hence it is to be assumed that greater 
portions of the population will be affected by the custom. 

Periods of rest have a double purpose : first, the restora- 
tion of consumed energy ; secondly, the exercise of functions 
not employed in the regular calling. The latter, too, is 
recreation. Those whose calling makes especial demands 
upon their mental powers will find recreation in the proper 
exercise of their bodily powers, in play, in travel, in mechan- 
ical activity ; those, on the other hand, whose work chiefly 
calls into play physical forces will find relief in mental 
activity, in reading. Social pleasures, music, games of all 
kinds, are excellent means of recreation for all alike. 

A proper balance between work and recreation is an essen- 
tial condition of health, efficiency, and happiness. An excess 
on either side is equally dangerous. It is now universally 
admitted that the development of industrial production has 
led to an intolerable excess of mechanical work. The efforts 
of the labor party to shorten the working time merit our 
entire approval. Work must not make a slave of man, but 
should enable him not only to acquire commodities, but to 
develop his powers. He should not be a mere tool, but a 
personal end in himself. When this becomes impossible, when 
daily labor leaves only time enough for the necessary animal 
functions of nutrition and sleep, man's life ceases to be a 
human life. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE ECONOMIC LIFE* 

1. The economic life has its origin in the natural needs, 
which man shares with the brute. When the functions en- 
gaged in the satisfaction of these needs are systematized by 
reason, two institutions arise which form the basis of 
economic life : labor and property. The accumulation of 
commodities, which is the original form of property, enables 
man to free himself from the slavery of momentary needs, to 
which the animal is subjected. This freedom is the precondi- 
tion of all real human life ; without it there can be no syste- 
matic, purposive activity, no mental-historical life. Through 
it, what remains a natural process in the animal world is raised 
to the moral sphere. 

We shall find occasion later on to make a more thorough 
examination of the institution of property and the historical 
forms which have been evolved from it. 2 Here I simply 
desire to outline the moral duties which the acquisition and 
consumption of commodities impose upon the individual. 

Commodities are acquired through labor. In the more 
highly developed stages of civilization, this assumes the form 
of a calling or profession. Professional efficiency and fidelity 
to calling are the virtues peculiar to this field. 

1 [Pale/, Bk. III., Part 1 ; Spencer, Inductions, ch. XI. ; Porter, Part II., ch. 
VI.; Jhering, vol. I., ch. VII.; Wundt, Part I., ch. III., 2 (d), 3 (a) ; ch. IV. 2 
(b), (c), (d) ; Runze, §§ 52-64 ; Fowler and Wilson, Part II., ch. 1 ; Dorner, pp. 
347-353, 418-429 ; Ho ff ding, pp. 265-312 ; Oettingen, Moralstatistik, Part II, 
ch. 1. — Te.] 

* In Bk. IV. 3, ch. I. 

u 



530 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

Under healthy conditions, the duties of the calling form the 
centre of one's entire life. The boy practises his future 
profession in play ; the youth leaves the parental home to 
learn it, and the man devotes his whole energy to it. The 
avocation determines our essential relations to the exter- 
nal world ; it brings us into contact with our colleagues during 
the periods of work and rest ; and upon it depends the manner 
in which we exercise our faculties in play. Hence the calling is 
the guiding principle in life ; it gives it steadiness and purpose. 
The teleological necessity of the calling becomes apparent 
when we consider the consequences of its lack. Both rich 
and poor may be without a calling. The individuals without 
a calling who form the lower fringe of society constitute the 
proletariat. This group is composed of those who have no 
steady work, but wander from place to place and beg or steal, or 
otherwise gain their livelihood. Aversion to work, dissipation, 
drunkenness, recklessness, vanity, are the vices which draw 
individuals into this group. Moreover, this mode of life is 
transmitted by heredity ; degenerate families raise degenerate 
offspring. The metropolis is the most favorable soil for the 
proletariat. The covetousness which finds nourishment there, 
the temptations which lurk about in thousands of guises, the 
isolation and " anonymousness " in which the individual lives 
among the masses, the occasional scarcity of work and the 
loneliness which confront him, — all these are conditions 
favorable to the development of a proletariat. Such a life 
reaches its completion in the infamy and shamelessness ac- 
quired in workhouses and prisons. 

Another group of persons who have no calling is formed at 
the upper fringe of society. I mean the professional idlers 
who live on their interest and absolve themselves of the duty 
of having a calling. Looked at from the outside, their 
manner of life differs from that of the other class ; seen 
from within, however, it shows many points of resemblance. 
Besides, these two classes come into personal contact with 



THE ECONOMIC LIFE 531 

each other ; thev meet in the demi-monde and among the 
gambling fraternity. Both congregate in large cities, both 
have peculiarly perverse notions of honor, both, above all, 
are restless in disposition and unsettled in their movements. 
Just as a ship without a cargo is aimlessly tossed about by 
the wind and the waves, so the life of the rich idler is the 
plaything of every whim or mood that happens to strike him. 
Nothing is required of him, so he takes up now one thing, now 
another, only to abandon it again at the earliest opportunity. 
The ability to will, which simply means the ability to perse- 
vere, even in the face of temporary distractions, is gradually 
lost when not exercised, and the victim perishes from an in- 
curable softening of the will. The disease was already known 
to Plato. In the Republic he describes it with all of its 
symptoms : " So he lives [in Plato " he " appears as the demo- 
cratic son of an oligarchical father] through the day, indulg- 
ing the appetite of the hour ; and sometimes he is lapped in 
drink and strains of the flute ; then he is for total abstinence, 
and tries to get thin ; then, again, he is at gymnastics ; some- 
times idling and neglecting everything, then once more living 
the life of a philosopher ; often he is at politics, and starts to 
his feet and says and does anything that may turn up ; and, 
if he is emulous of any one who is a warrior, off he is in that 
direction, or of men of business, once more in that. His life 
has neither order nor law ; and this is the way of him — this 
he terms joy and freedom and happiness. — Admirably, said 
Glaucon,have you described the life of a ' man of freedom.' " l 
Indeed, this is an admirable picture, true to life, the model 
for which it would not be hard to find even among us. 
The son of the " oligarchical " money-making father, loving 
" democratic " liberty and sport, enjoying the life of the 
metropolis, is evidently a peculiar product of the times. 
Prince Bismarck once declared in the Reichstag that no 
one was rated highly in Germany who did not have an 

1 [Plato's Republic, 561 B ; JWett's translation. — Tr] 



532 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

honorable calling. I am afraid this judgment expresses the 
opinion of an older generation rather than of ours. At any 
rate, the view is becoming very popular of late that the 
calling of the capitalist {Rentier) is the most genteel of all, 
and everybody seems to agree that his life is, to speak with 
Plato, joyful and free and happy. 

Of course, this is a mistake. For man was not designed 
by nature merely to enjoy, but to work and acquire. How- 
ever plausible it may at first sight appear, the attempt to 
live a life of enjoyment merely, has invariably failed. Toil 
and pleasure, that is an old law of nature; without the 
former we cannot obtain the latter. Whoever possesses the 
freedom which goes with wealth, of choosing any calling, 
and chooses none at all, but releases himself from all obli- 
gations, undoubtedly chooses the very worst : nothing causes 
more anxiety in the long run than the thought of how to 
spend the long weary days. If ever the proverb which con- 
nects the words choice and torture 1 was true, it is true here. 
We observe this in spoilt children : they pick up everything, 
they try everything, and throw everything away, only to 
desire something else ; and when they get that, they throw 
it away again, and again wish for something new; and so, 
constantly desiring the other thing, they are the unhappiest, 
most discontented, and contrary creatures in the world. 
Those who make idleness the business of their lives experi- 
ence the same thing ; they take up one thing after another, 
and then abandon it again, and thus become the victims of 
the professional disease of the idler, tedium, Langeweile, 
ennui. Kestlessly they toss about and make all kinds of 
desperate attempts to get rid of the trouble : they try amuse- 
ments, games, love-affairs, and sports, they take to drink, 
form societies, travel, enter politics, speculate on the stock 
exchange, until at last they are exhausted and sick of life. 

1 [Wer die Wahl hat, hat die Qual. (Literally : He that has the choice has the 
torture, i. e., Choosing is difficult.) — Tr.] 



THE ECONOMIC LIFE 533 

2. Not only do we owe it to ourselves to pursue a serious 
calling but likewise to society at large. The man who refuses 
to work in some way or other lives at others' expense. 
This is no less true of one who idly spends his inheritance 
than of the professional beggar or thief. From the legal 
point of view the former consumes what belongs to him and 
does no wrong ; from the moral standpoint, however, — that 
is, in reality, — he accepts the products of others' labor with- 
out making any return ; he lives as a parasite at the table of 
the people, without helping to defray the costs. 

It was formerly customary for philosophers to apply the 
principle of the tacit contract in the social sciences. John 
Locke endeavors to base upon it the income which the land- 
lord derives from his rents. After deducing the right of 
property in a thing from the labor by which it is acquired 
or produced, he asks : How does it happen that any one 
possesses more land than he can cultivate himself? He 
finds that the thing can be justified only by the consent of 
the people ; that this was given, tacitly, of course, by the 
introduction of an invention which enabled an individual to 
obtain the revenue of more land than he could cultivate, 
that is, by the introduction of money. An indirect accumu- 
lation and hoarding of products beyond the amount needed 
for self-consumption is made possible by converting them 
into money. But inasmuch as money possesses a conven- 
tional value only, society has, by adopting the invention, 
tacitly given its consent to the consequences thereof. 

But to this (somewhat imaginary) contract, we might con- 
tinue, society has, likewise tacitly, added a clause: it shall 
be valid only on condition that the person who thus becomes 
possessed of wealth shall make some return for the surplus 
which he acquires with the tacit consent of society. A con- 
tract assumes that some return be made, otherwise it is a 
donation ; and there is no reason to suppose that society 
intended to donate anything to any one, nor has society any 



534 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

right to do so, at least if future generations are to bear the 
burden. The individual may make such a return by assum- 
ing public responsibilities : say by leading and representing 
his people in peace and in war, by serving as a judge or 
legislator, by performing the duties of the priestly calling, 
or by administering the spiritual possessions of a nation in 
science and in art. And it may still be regarded as such a 
return to systematize and guide economic production, nay 
even to influence consumption in a manner conducive to 
welfare, by example and encouragement, by public gener- 
osity and private beneficence. — During the time when the 
nobility and clergy still were an active power in the body 
politic, they so conceived and performed their functions. 
The man who does nothing ignores the obligations tacitly 
assumed by accepting property, and, therefore, has no right 
to it, from the moral point of view. The pure capitalist 
(unless he be an emeritus) is a thief. The people fully ap- 
preciate this fact ; and evidently the law against usury, estab- 
lished by the old church, was based upon some such feeling : 
whoever lives without working and consumes inherited wealth, 
lives upon the products of others, for money, as Aristotle says, 
bears no fruit. 

The law does not execute the judgment of morals, it does 
not repudiate ownership in property when no return is made, 
or in case of misuse, and it is probably well that it does 
not. For it would not only be impossible to formulate the 
necessary rules and to enforce them, but there would arise a 
feeling of insecurity in reference to property which would 
carry greater evils in its train than the most flagrant abuse of 
property-rights in particular instances could effect. In a 
certain sense, however, history realizes the judgment of mor- 
ality. Whenever the nobility and clergy renounced their 
obligations and merely retained the corresponding privileges 
as an inalienable right, things went along in this way for a 
while, but the day of reckoning came at last, and they were 



THE ECONOMIC LIFE 535 

cast off from the social body as useless members or as harm- 
ful parasites. Thus history pronounced sentence upon the 
French nobility in the French revolution ; and the ecclesiasti- 
cal revolution of the sixteenth century condemned the clergy, 
who had proved false to their trust. History will not hold the 
capitalist more sacred than the nobility and the clergy. 

It is furthermore worthy of note that, with the progress of 
history, society is to a greater and greater extent changing 
the tacit contract into an explicit one, by transferring the 
aforesaid functions, which were originally performed by the 
wealthy without direct emolument, in honorary positions, to 
appointed and salaried officials. Appointed and salaried min- 
isters and privy counsellors, officers and judges, are now 
expressly commissioned to discharge the duties which, in the 
Middle Ages as well as during antiquity, were the prerogatives 
and duties of the great families. Even the economic functions 
are beginning to be separated from possession. The great 
landowner transfers the cares of administration to the tenant ; 
in the great industrial enterprises of modern times salaried 
employees relieve the capitalist of all work ; the owner 
becomes an annuitant. It is evident that this state of affairs 
diminishes the teleological necessity of ownership in land and 
capital, and correspondingly affects the stability of the insti- 
tution. Things which are no longer rooted in the life-condi- 
tions of society perish. Let us suppose that several thousand 
families in Germany should gain possession of all the pro- 
perty, so that all the others would be forced to live upon the 
product of their labor, while the former merely consumed their 
rents. What happened to the French nobility a hundred years 
ago would obviously happen to these capitalists. Are we on 
the eve of a new great judgment-day of history ? Are the days 
of the bourgeoisie numbered ? An evil presentiment seems to 
have taken hold of society. It is certain that a social revolu- 
tion would not come upon us as unexpectedly as in 1789. 
But perhaps this is a sign that it is not so near at hand : the 



536 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

judgment-day of history always seems to steal upon us una^ 
wares, like the thief in the night. One thing, however, is 
plain : whoever consumes rents without making some return 
or other, is hastening the coming of the judgment. The 
eighth commandment is never broken with impunity. The 
law, however, Thou shalt not steal, is merely the negative 
formula of the positive command : " By the sweat of thy face 
shalt thou eat bread." 

3. Let us cast a glance at the other side of economic life, 
at the question of consumption} The virtue peculiar to this 
field is the virtue of frugality, or economy, the capacity to 
manage one's affairs according to one's income as well as 
according to the needs and obligations which grow out of 
individual conditions and social rank. This virtue, too, we 
may define, following the Aristotelian principle, as a mean 
between two faults or vices, greed and prodigality. The miser 
saves where he ought to spend, the spendthrift spends lavishly 
where he ought to save. The good manager is distinguished 
from the prodigal by the virtue of frugality, from the miser 
by the virtue which Kant calls liheralitas moralis (in opposi- 
tion to liheralitas sumptuosa) : he lives decently himself, and 
is generous to others who need his help. 

Of the two vices, avarice is the more disgraceful, extrava- 
gance the more dangerous. Greed characterizes a base nature. 
The soul in which it has taken root withers and dies ; all higher 
aspirations disappear. The miser at last begrudges himself 
and others all that is good. Extravagance, on the other hand, 
may exist in connection with grand aspirations. It is closely 
allied to a much admired virtue, generosity. The spendthrift 
always regards himself as a liberal man, and is likewise 
praised as such by those who profit by his extravagance. 
Avarice, on the other hand, has no one to sing its praises ; nay, 
even the virtue of which it is a degenerate form, frugality, 
finds few admirers, especially when practised by princes and 

i [Aristotle, Ethics, Bk. IV. — Tr.] 



THE ECONOMIC LIFE 537 

great lords. All lackeys, big and little, whose expectations are 
not realized, show their gratitude by reviling the frugal giver. 
Generosity, however, even when practised at others' expense, 
makes a good impression upon all, even upon those who bear 
the loss. For this reason prodigality is a tempting vice, 
and in avarice there is nothing seductive ; indeed it is strange 
that avarice should exist at all. And this also explains the 
well-known fact that greed is confined almost entirely to old 
age. Old men become indifferent to opinions and appear- 
ances ; experience shows that the impoverished spendthrift 
becomes an object of ridicule to his former friends and ad- 
mirers ; hence it is not the man who has wasted his substance, 
but the man who still has his money in his pocket that is well 
thought of in the long run. Besides, all desires diminish as 
the capacity for enjoyment becomes weaker in old age, while 
the abstract desire for possession continues strong to the end. 
Hence, we might, perhaps, regard this process as a strategy 
of nature to transmit the products of the parent generation 
to its successors. 

Avarice, therefore, debasing though it be, is not altogether 
injurious in its effects. The consequences of extravagance, 
on the other hand, are absolutely destructive to individual 
as well as to social life. The first consequence of extrava- 
gance is a lack of means for the necessaries of life, and the 
resulting need of exercising strict economy in the wrong 
place. What the wife wastes on dress and show must be 
made up in the home and on the table. What is spent on 
receptions and sports, on horses and dogs, is deducted from 
the household allowance. Still more often there is not 
money enough to meet legitimate expenses : the servants 
are not properly fed, niggardly wages are paid, public en- 
terprises make vain appeals for aid, contributions to com- 
munity and state are made as small as possible and given 
reluctantly ; — we invariably think of the noblesse oblige at 
the wrong time. And just as extravagance leads to false 



538 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

economy, it leads to improper methods of acquisition. The 
landowner fleeces his tenants and day laborers, the prince 
his subjects, the physician his patients, the lawyer his clients, 
the gentleman of leisure takes to gambling, the merchant 
speculates on the exchange, the tradesman adulterates his 
goods, the official accepts bribes or fawns upon his superiors 
for promotion or an increase in salary, the courtier begs for 
pensions and presents, the author and the scholar cater to the 
popular tastes, the artist tickles the palate of the money-bag ; 
money must be made, money at any price, even at the price of 
freedom and honor, body and soul ! There is no joking when 
it comes to money matters, said a well-known financier ; in 
money matters most people also lose their pride. When it 
comes to fees, the process described by the proverb in refer- 
ence to thieves is reversed ; here the big ones are accepted 
and the little ones rejected with scorn. Money has no 
smell. The maxim reaches farther than one would imagine ; 
even the most " respectable " classes act upon it. How ready 
many rich people are to shift the public burdens upon the 
poor man, the new assessment-lists for the income-tax have 
recently shown in mortifying figures. 

But, it is contended, when a man has means he surely ought 
not to be blamed for spending them ; he causes money to 
circulate among the people. How many busy hands receive 
employment and earn money through a ball or a masquerade ! 
— This is the popular view, but it is superficial. Would these 
hands remain idle if there were no demand for costumes? 
Of course, now that these costumers and their train are 
here, such entertainments must be given to keep them 
alive. But would they be here if there were no such de- 
mand ? Apparently not ; the demand creates the supply. 
Consequently, would the individuals who now depend upon 
such orders have had nothing at all to do ? Apparently not ; 
for instead of ball dresses for the baronesses of finance they 
would now be making cotton clothes. The effect, therefore, 



THE ECONOMIC LIFE 539 

of this method of making money circulate among the people 
is simply to divert production from the manufacture of 
commodities intended for general use to the manufacture of 
luxuries. When a great lord keeps ten servants and twenty 
fancy horses, he consumes what these consume, and when he 
transforms a square mile of farmland into a game preserve, 
he practically enjoys the grain formerly harvested on this 
field, in the form of the pleasures which he derives from the 
chase. 

This, of course, by no means settles the question whether 
such a diversion of production may not be good for those 
directly concerned as well as for the community. Everything 
will depend upon the value these luxuries have, not merely for 
the person directly enjoying them, but also for the community. 
Whoever believes that the life of a people is enriched and 
ennobled by balls and parties and artistic dinners, must praise 
those who arrange them for turning national production into 
these channels. Whoever thinks differently will not place 
the same estimate upon the services of these persons. It 
is to be observed, in this connection, that it is a difficult 
matter to judge of the value of products which do not satisfy 
average needs. The Parthenon and its sculptures, the fes- 
tivals for which iEschylus and Sophocles composed their 
tragedies, the mediaeval cathedrals with their decorations and 
utensils, — these, too, are luxuries, and presumably, fault- 
finders were not lacking ; surely not in the Middle Ages. 
Religion does not require such worldly pomp, thought the 
evangelical brothers, and how much misery and want might 
have been alleviated with the money thus expended ! Yet 
we should be inclined to say that the money was well spent 
and that a higher purpose was realized in this way than if 
it had been used in clothing and feeding the poor. All, with 
the exception of those to whom they gave offence, enjoyed 
these works ; then, too, they stimulated the arts, which in 
turn developed architecture and manufacture, thereby bene- 



540 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

fiting even the poorest. Similarly, we are not to blame a 
great lord for building grand and beautiful houses, and fur- 
nishing them splendidly ; by laying out a park he may be 
putting his land to the best possible use, even from the 
standpoint of the community. And who would be narrow- 
hearted enough to object to the care and money expended 
upon beautiful and enjoyable social entertainments of a 
grand character ? There are diversities of gifts : this truth 
will hold even against a morose Puritanism. 1 

4. The most favorable condition for the development of 
the economic virtues, is, as the old Greek sages already 
declared, the possession of moderate means; wealth (Wohl- 
stand) our language significantly calls it. Pleasure in 
acquisition and possession, efficient work, and moderation in 
the use of commodities, are most common in the middle 
classes. The " too much " and the " too little " are equally 
dangerous. Riches are dangerous in hat they tend to en- 
courage idleness, arrogance, ostentation, and extravagance. 
Excess, however, begets sorrow and ruin. Especially dan- 
gerous is sudden wealth not acquired through labor. The 
money won in lotteries and stock speculations usually soon 
goes the way it came ; not, however, without first ruining 
the life of the lucky winner. Inherited possessions are not 
so dangerous. A family that has been long accustomed to 
certain conditions of life develops the power to resist the 
temptations of riches ; the man who inherits the wealth of 
his ancestors in a certain measure inherits their sense of 
duty and honor. The feeling that he is destined to do 
great things serves to counteract the empty feeling of power 
which easily turns the head of the nouveau riche. 

Poverty is equally unfavorable to the development of eco- 
nomic virtues. Inherited poverty deadens the sense of owner- 
ship. Children reared in utterly destitute families, in families 
living from hand to mouth, fail to experience the pleasures of 

i [Runze, § 59. — Tr.] 



THE ECONOMIC LIFE 541 

acquisition and ownership. The desire to have more than is 
required to satisfy daily needs does not manifest itself, or at 
least remains an idle wish, and never grows into a strong voli- 
tion. When this state becomes a habit, the individual be- 
comes improvident and reckless, giving no heed to the morrow. 
Poverty tends to blunt the sense of ownership in another sense : 
it weakens the person's ability to discriminate between mine 
and thine. When a man possesses property himself, he appre- 
ciates the sacredness of property. When he looks upon the in- 
stitution of property merely as a barrier, $ a protection against 
him and not also for him, he naturally feels less hesitancy in 
overleaping it than when he has been accustomed from child- 
hood to regard it as a means of self-defence. So poverty easily 
becomes a school for theft, for which the pupil is prepared by 
mendicancy and the tipping-system (JPrmhgelder). Beggary 
robs a man of his economic honor, which depends upon his 
economic independence, his ability to help himself by his own 
efforts. The custom of accepting tips or fees is the first, ap- 
parently quite innocent, form of beggary. That it, too, lessens 
a man's economic honor may be seen from the fact that the 
offer of a tip may under certain circumstances be a gross 
insult. 1 

The possession of moderate means secures the individual 
against temptations in either direction. It saves him from 

1 On the effects of the habitual acceptance of tips see the interesting essay 
of R. v. Jhering UI)er das Trinkgeld. The relation between theft and poverty- 
is shown by criminal statistics. H. v. Valentini (Das Verbrecherthum im Preuss. 
Staat, 1869) constantly refers to it. He gives a table (p. 22), in which the 
Prussian provinces are arranged according to tbe frequency of grand larceny 
(during the sixties) as follows : For every 100,000 inhabitants there were sen- 
tenced to the penitentiary for grand larceny : in the Rhineland, 5.59 ; in West- 
phalia, 9.21; in Saxony, 18.33; in Pomerania, 20.57; in Prussia, 24.69; in 
Brandenburg, 26.27 ; in Posen, 32.89 ; in Silesia, 36.94. On page 56 we find a 
table showing the distribution of landed property : a small piece of land (as 
much as 30 acres) is owned by 4 inhabitants in the Rhineland ; by 8 in West- 
phalia; 11 in Saxony; 14 in Silesia; 22 in Brandenburg and Pomerania; 25 
in Posen ; 30 in Prussia. Theft, as we see, follows large landownership like its 
shadow. It is unfortunate that the German capital has received and still receives 
most of its increase to the lower classes of population from the Eastern provinces. 



542 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

the slavery which is the companion of poverty ; it gives him 
the free choice of a profession, without tempting him not to 
follow any calling whatever. It develops in him a desire for 
possession, as opposed to the proletarian supineness of poverty ; 
it arouses a pleasure in ownership, as opposed to the arrogance 
of satiety, which follows upon superabundance. It is plain, 
the conditions in this regard are not favorable in our age. 
The marvellous growth of industry and commerce during the 
nineteenth century, the concomitant development of specula- 
tion and the stock exchange system, have enabled particular 
individuals to accumulate enormous wealth, not infrequently 
without any merit of their own, which now seeks in vain for 
rational employment. The consequence is senseless extrav- 
agance, a great greed for gain, and an insane mania for gamb- 
ling. Universal poverty and proletarian misery form the 
obverse of the picture. 



CHAPTER V 

THE SPIRITUAL LIFE AND CULTURE » 

1. By culture we mean the perfect development of spiritual 
life. It consists in the capacity, acquired by instruction and 
practice, to take an active part in the spiritual life, first ol 
a people, and ultimately of humanity. 

We note as the two essential phases in the spiritual life 
of a people, knowledge and the creative fancy, philosophy 
and science, art and poetry. Culture, therefore, means for 
the individual the development of the intellect to the end 
that he may know the truth, and of the senses and the 
imagination, that he may comprehend and enjoy the beauti- 
ful. — The detailed treatment of this subject belongs to peda- 
gogy. I shall merely give the outlines, and consider knowledge 
first. 

Knowledge has a double function. The intellect is, first, 
the organ of the will ; its function is to adjust the latter to 
its environment. As was indicated before, the feeling of 
pleasure and pain may be regarded as the most primitive 
form of knowledge. The senses, which are developed from 
the general animal sensibility, enable the animal to under- 
stand its more remote surroundings and to adapt itself 
to what is useful or harmful. Sensibility develops into intel- 
ligence, which may be defined, in a general way, as the 
faculty to know from what is given that which is not given. 

1 [Porter, Part II., ch. IV. ; Hoffdiag, pp. 313-354 ; also XXI. ; Spencer, 
Ethics of Individual Life, ch. VI.; Runze, §§ 44 f. ; Smyth, Part II., ch. II., pp. 
356-371; Wundt, Part IV., ch. 1, 4; Seth, Part II., ch. I. (II.); Oettingen, 
Moralstatistik, Part II., ch. II. — Tr.] 



544 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

It employs the data of sense-perception as signs, and inferg 
from these that which is not yet perceived, especially the 
future, the remote in time. 

The intellect, which already plays an important role in 
the higher animals, reaches its highest perfection in man 
in conceptual knowledge. The latter differs from sensuous 
knowledge in that it is based upon the analysis of percepts. 
The animal combines percepts by association, and so makes 
a kind of inference from certain perception-complexes to 
future occurrences. But the animal does not, so far as we 
may conjecture, succeed in resolving the percepts into their 
particular elements ; it does not distinguish, in fire, between 
the wood and the process of combustion, in a moving object 
between the persistent body and the temporary movement. 
Man, however, does this, and so, on the basis of analysis, 
forms the synthetic judgments : the body moves, the wood 
burns. The animal ""oes not distinguish the direction and 
the velocity of the movement, nor the size and the weight 
of the body. By making such an analysis, man succeeds 
in discovering the ultimate and constant relations between 
the simple components ; these are expressed in the for- 
mulae which we call laws of nature. The knowledge of them 
gives him theoretical and practical control of the nature of 
things : he is able not only to foresee the complex processes, 
which the animal too, may, in a certain measure, foresee, but 
also to explain them, that is, to deduce them from their 
causes, and, in so far as the causes are in his power, to 
produce them. — Thus, the intellect has become the powerful 
instrument by which man has made the earth his servant. 
He has tamed the animals or exterminated them, he has 
selected and formed the plants which cover the earth, he has 
compelled the forces of nature to do his bidding. Knowledge 
is power. 1 

i [Compare with this James's admirable chapter on Reasoning (Psychology 
Vol. II.). — Tr.] 



SPIRITUAL LIFE AND CULTURE 545 

But knowledge also has another, an immediate value. In 
the animal it is absolutely subservient to practical needs, in 
man it becomes free ; he takes a disinterested interest in con- 
templation, so to speak. This holds even of sense-perception. 
The eye finds pleasure in forms and colors, the ear, in notes 
and their rhythmical musical succession ; hence arise music 
and painting. From the same pleasure in the contemplation 
of things springs philosophy. Philosophy is purely contem- 
plative knowledge. This is the original meaning of the word 
among the Greeks ; the Socratic school, in which it was first 
used as a technical term, distinguishes philosophy, as purely 
theoretical knowledge, from technical knowledge, to which 
also Sophistic dialectics and rhetoric belong. In this most gen- 
eral sense philosophy is a universal human function ; mythology 
is its most primitive form ; it universally arises as an attempt 
to comprehend the whole of things into one conception ; and to 
interpret the meaning of the universe and especially of life. 1 

This estimate of knowledge will furnish us with a stan- 
dard by which to measure the value of •particular forms of 
cognition. We shall say that a particular truth has value 
in so far as it tends to increase our practical power, and our 
theoretical insight into the nature of things in general. 
Knowledge which has no value in either sense, which accom- 
plishes nothing for our technics or for our philosophy, has 
no value whatever. The proposition : All knowledge has 
absolute value as such, or : Everything that is, is worthy of 
being known, is not infrequently proclaimed in our age as 
the highest principle of scientific research. I cannot help 
regarding this as a meaningless assertion — one, however, 
that is accepted by many as a convenient means of silencing 
the question concerning the value of particular investigations. 
Apparently, however, the true scientist does not adhere to 
this principle. In spite of the assertion that everything that 

1 The reader will find an elaborate account of these topics in my Introduction 
t9 Philosophy, 5th ed. 1898. [Thilly's tr.] 



546 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

exists deserves to be known, no historian has ever undertaken 
to ascertain what such and such a celebrity or " obscurity " 
has had for breakfast or dinner every day of his life, and no 
one has yet volunteered to attack the problem once suggested 
by Jean Paul — the history and system of typographical 
errors since the invention of printing. Nor has any scientist 
ever attempted to count the grains of sand on the seashore, 
and to describe the forms of the separate grains. Why not ? 
Surely because healthy common-sense, if not scientific insight, 
instinctively recognizes the uselessness of such a task. — It 
must be added, however, that we cannot always tell in 
advance whether an investigation will yield results which 
may have some bearing on knowledge in either form or not. 
In no case, perhaps, has healthy common-sense betrayed 
such shortsightedness as in its repudiation of scientific 
research as useless trifling or curiosity. Bacon ridiculed a 
contemporary for thinking it worth while to experiment 
with magnetic phenomena. Socrates rejected all physical 
investigations as idle speculation : to know oneself he con- 
sidered the most essential, worthy, and possible task. No one 
any longer holds these views in physics ; everybody knows 
that physics has achieved the greatest results for our philoso- 
phical conceptions of the universe as well as for practice, in 
consequence of its maxim that regards nothing as too trivial. 
Healthy common-sense may perhaps feel more inclined at 
present to find fault with philological, historical, and psycho- 
logical investigations ; and, indeed, who can help thinking 
that, beside the grain, a great deal of chaff is being gath- 
ered in these fields as a precious harvest ? Still, we must 
not forget that a fragment of knowledge which seemed rather 
insignificant at first has often gained, later on, an impor- 
tance not dreamed of. The first attempts in comparative lan- 
guage may perhaps have seemed more like useless trifles than 
serious work ; and yet what an extraordinary influence they 
have had upon our modern historical world-view ! Hence, it is 



SPIRITUAL LIFE AND CULTURE 547 

by no means necessary that every investigation should justify 
its utility in advance ; the principle holds nevertheless : that 
knowledge has value only in so far as it increases and pro- 
motes our practical power over things or our philosophical 
knowledge of the world. 

2. The same principle applies when it comes co judging 
the value of knowledge for the individual. Cognitions have 
no absolute value for the individual, they have value in so far 
as they do something for him, either by solving his practical 
life-problems, or by assisting him in his philosophical reflec- 
tions, or, in other words, in so far as they make him wiser and 
more prudent. Knowledge which does neither one nor the 
other, which does not make him either more efficient in his 
calling or more skilful in contemplation, has no value for him 
whatever. If we call the knowledge upon which professional 
efficiency is based professional or technical education, and that 
upon which rests the ability to contemplate, to participate in 
philosophy, literature, and art, general culture, we may 
say : Only such knowledge is valuable to the individual as 
either serves to give him professional culture, or intensifies 
his general culture, or does both. 

And this would give us a principle for the guidance of 
instruction: Everybody ought to acquire such knowledge as 
will assist him, on the one hand, in following his special call- 
ing to the best possible advantage, and, on the other, in 
understanding the world from his position in life. It is ob- 
vious that the first demand, the demand for professional 
culture, has a different meaning for different individuals. 
Nor does the second demand mean the same for all. Speaking 
abstractly, it is true, all have the same end in view : general 
culture or the faculty to participate in the active spiritual life 
of the people ; and this will ultimately depend upon the same 
two things : upon the knowledge of nature, or cosmology, and 
the knowledge of history or spiritual life ; for the former gives 
us an idea of the general form of reality, while the latter sup- 



548 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

plies us with the ultimate and universal content by which to 
interpret the meaning of reality. But the ways and means by 
which individuals obtain these and the form in which they 
possess them, differ according to the capacities and inclina- 
tions of the individuals themselves as well as according to 
their external conditions and opportunities in life. 

These differences make necessary different schools and 
courses of study. Three fundamental forms appear : the 
primary school (Vblksschule), the secondary school (Mittelschule), 
and the university {Hochschule). The object of the primary 
school is to educate the great masses of the population in a 
manner suitable to their needs. The curriculum must keep 
in view the fact that, owing to the economic conditions of 
their parents, the pupils must complete the course at the age 
of fourteen, and are destined to enter callings which chiefly 
require manual labor. The course of study therefore should 
consist mainly in the acquisition of the elementary branches, 
reading, writing, drawing, and arithmetic, and also in attain- 
ing a general notion of the natural and historical surroundings. 
The purpose of the secondary or intermediate school is to 
educate those pupils the economic condition of whose parents 
permits a somewhat longer attendance, and whose prospective 
position in life will require work of a higher character, pre- 
supposing greater knowledge and skill, and affording more 
leisure and greater opportunities for free action. To the sub- 
jects taught in the primary grades, which are, of course, in- 
tensified and elaborated here, are added especially foreign 
languages and mathematics, the latter the instrument of the 
natural sciences and technics, the former the medium of inter- 
national intercourse, commercial as well as spiritual, and of 
an intensified humanistic-historical culture. The university, 
finally, has as its aim the extension of general scientific and 
philosophical knowledge, and also, particularly, the acquisition 
of scientific-technical education, which is the precondition of 
professional activitv. 



SPIRITUAL LIFE AND CULTURE 549 

That school will be the best for the individual which, on 
the one hand, is suited to his individual talents and tastes, 
and, on the other, to his future calling and position in life. 
By no means can we admit that the more elaborate and ad- 
vanced instruction is desirable for all, and that it is only from 
necessity that pupils content themselves with the elementary 
form. There are people who, in their zeal for equality, are 
inclined to demand the same schools and the same education 
for everybody. We may say to such : It is not wise to 
give a man advanced scientific instruction whose future call- 
ing will make it necessary for him to do manual labor, even 
though he possess intellectual talents, provided he cannot at 
the same time enter a learned profession. Nor is it wise to 
whip the son of a banker or privy councillor through the 
gymnasium and the examinations, regardless of the protests 
of his nature, which unfortunately is a much more common 
case than the other. The principle holds absolutely : 
Knowledge which the individual cannot utilize, either on 
account of natural incapacity, or in consequence of his exter- 
nal position, is of absolutely no value to him. 

Yes, we may go further and say it is an evil. This be- 
comes self-evident when the individual is lacking in talent. 
To know too much for his capacity makes a man not wiser, 
but more stupid. We must discriminate between stupidity 
and ignorance. Ignorance is a lack of knowledge, stupidity 
is a lack of judgment, and may go with great learning, nay, it 
may, under certain circumstances, be due to this. A good 
anecdote is told of the Duke of Wellington. A young man once 
applied to him for an office. After conversing with him for 
a while, the Duke refused his application, adding : " Sir, you 
have received too much eduo^Jon for your brains." I fear 
that if the Duke of Wellington could attend our examinations, 
he would not infrequently make the same discovery. Nowa- 
days offices depend upon examinations, and state examina- 
tions naturally take account only of the information which 



550 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

an applicant possesses. Knowledge has thus acquired a 
purely accidental and external value for the possessor as a 
social being — a value which is entirely independent of its real 
value to him as a rational being. Hence it happens that 
many learn many things which do not fit in with their natural 
capacities and inclinations. The result is, not only does the 
acquisition of such knowledge become a torture to both teach- 
ers and pupils, but injury is done to what natural intelligence 
the latter may possess. The judgment is confused and over- 
burdened by such undigested knowledge. It very often hap- 
pens in an examination that a question addressed to the 
intellect is answered by the memory ; instead of a judgment 
we are offered a memorized formula or fact. It is often im- 
possible to induce the candidate to use his intellect ; it has 
become rudimentary in consequence of constant study. It is 
to be feared that such a person will act precisely in the 
same way when he enters the practical world ; the case de- 
mands that he observe and understand a fact, that he con- 
sider what is possible and necessary ; instead of opening his 
eyes and using his intellect, our learned friend soon begins to 
ransack his memory for formulae and facts, which he has for- 
merly learned off by heart ; he involuntarily falls into the ex- 
amination habit for which he has been trained, — he does not 
know what else to do with his intellect. Bluntschli expresses 
the opinion, somewhere in his Autobiography, that this not 
infrequently happens to our jurists : by constantly memoriz- 
ing and reciting formulas they entirely lose their ability to 
look at things in a natural way. That is most likely what 
the German proverb means which calls the learned the per- 
verted {die Gelehrten die Verhehrten). And Huxley means 
the same thing when he says in one of his Addresses: 1 " In 
my belief, stupidity, in nine cases out of ten, fit non nascitur, 
and is developed by a long process of parental and pedagogic 
repression of the natural intellectual appetites, accompanied 

J [Science and Education, p. 128.] 



SPIRITUAL LIFE AND CULTURE 551 

by a persistent attempt to create artificial ones for food which 
is not only tasteless, but essentially indigestible." And be- 
side the stupidity thus acquired, another quality is acquired, 
and that is pride, haughtiness. Over-education not only dwarfs 
the head but also the heart. Knowledge puffeth up, says the 
apostle ; this is particularly true of knowledge of which the 
possessor can make no legitimate use. Not useful, but use- 
less things are employed for show. The useful finds satis- 
faction in being put to its right use, while superfluous pomp 
invariably strives to make a display of itself. The same 
may be said of useless learning : the possessor endeavors to 
parade it, so that he may at least get something out of it. 
The educated young lady or her governess cannot rest until 
she has " shown off" her French, so that people may praise 
her culture ; the Untersekundaner who has fretted long over 
his Latin exercises until he finally gets his Uinjahrigen- 
schein, 1 is now not infrequently plagued with the Latin-pride 
for the rest of his life. 

But also where there is a conflict between his education and 
position in life, where his calling and social rank prevent him 
from utilizing his school education, the possessor of the knowl- 
edge is placed in a false position, and his learning is not a 
blessing. He makes claims upon life which cannot be satis- 
fied, he cannot find pleasure in the work which his calling re- 
quires of him, he does not feel at ease in his surroundings. 
The " Latin peasant " (der lateinische Bauer) is a well-known 
character ; in his own sphere he is regarded with a mixture of 
awe and contempt, and his attitude toward the world is one of 
discontent ; he feels out of place. Such moods are quite com- 
mon in our day. We meet persons who have been " de- 
classed " by their education, — among men as well as among 
women. They are all alike in that they consider what life 

1 [The " one-year-certificate," which entitles the holder to serve in the German 
army for one year as a volunteer, instead of as a conscript, who must serve three 
years. — Tr.] 



552 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

demands of them beneath their dignity, and therefore suffer 
from habitual ill-temper. In our higher schools a certain num- 
ber of scholarships are regularly awarded, and in the larger 
cities they are often given to poor and talented boys from the 
Volksschulen. The object is doubtless a commendable one; 
but it is not so certain that the results are beneficial to the 
boys. Even in the school itself they often feel out of place ; 
they do not find the necessary quiet and sympathy at home, 
they do not receive the assistance which they occasion- 
ally need, they must do without school books, and many 
of them are soon compelled, perhaps after having obtained 
the Mnjdhrigenschein, to leave school for good. I fear 
the education thus acquired and the Einjahrigenschein often 
prove to be possessions of negative value. Others endeavor 
to fight their way through, to graduate from the school 
and university — unusual bodily and mental powers of resist- 
ance are nowadays required to overcome the countless pri- 
vations and obstacles • — and after all the examinations have 
been passed and the ship seems to be safe in the harbor, it 
frequently happens that the struggler is shipwrecked after all. 
Would it not have been wiser to relinquish the proffered place 
in the gymnasium ? To be sure, it pains a man of unusual 
talent to find himself handicapped in his attempt to get an edu- 
cation and forced to do mechanical labor for life. And it is a 
loss to the nation as well, in several respects : talents are 
wasted, which nature does not too freely bestow, and entire 
spheres of society are cut off from the spiritual culture of the 
people, nay become hostile to it when it becomes utterly unat- 
tainable. It would be to the interest of the individual as 
well as of society to return to the old practice of the six- 
teenth century, and to educate men of pronounced ability at 
public expense and for the public service. 

These thoughts are summed up in a remark of Goethe's : 
u Man is born for limited surroundings ; he is capable of 
grasping simple, near, and definite ends, and he accustoms 



SPIRITUAL LIFE AND CULTURE 553 

himself to employ the means close at hand. So soon, how- 
ever, as it comes to more remote ends, he neither knows what 
he wants nor what he ought to do. It is always a misfortune 
for him when he is induced to strive after something with which 
he cannot come into active relations" And the words of Faust, 
who groans beneath the load of scholastic learning, ought to 
be inscribed above the doors of our schoolhouses, to serve as 
a warning to our parents when they bring their children to 
school : " Was man nicht nutzt ist eine schwere Last." 

For there has hardly been an age in the history of our 
people when the evil of over-education prevailed to such an 
extent as at present. The reasons are plain enough ; there 
never was a time when education was held in such high 
esteem as now. Formerly men were divided into clergy and 
laymen, believers and unbelievers, nobles and citizens ; now 
we classify them as educated and uneducated. When we 
desire to recommend a young man, we say he has a fine and 
many-sided education ; when we wish to express our low 
opinion of a woman, we sum it all up in the statement that she 
is a thoroughly uncultured person, whereupon everybody knows 
what to think of her. No wonder, therefore, that the whole 
world is running after culture, that our fathers and mothers 
desire nothing more earnestly than to enable their sons and 
daughters to get an education : with an education they can 
become everything, without an education they are nothing. 
The demand for education creates the supply of the means 
and institutions of education, which is so characteristic of our 
age. Illustrated and non-illustrated text-books of education, 
of scientific and historical education, large and small educa- 
tional dictionaries and lexicons, institutes of all kinds for 
the higher education of daughters and sons, intermediate 
schools and gymnasia, humanistic and realistic, — all these 
enterprises have for the last fifty years increased with remark- 
able rapidity, and still have been unable to satisfy the grow- 
ing demand : indeed, the institutions in which culture, male 



554 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

and female, is manufactured, are usually so overcrowded that 
applications for admission must be made years in advance. 
No wonder, then, that in this mad race, not a few obtain an 
education which is not adapted to their personal and social 
conditions, and makes them unhappy. The educated female 
has long been the domestic affliction of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. Of recent years, we have also had thrust upon us the 
man with a high school and university education, who cannot 
earn his bread and butter, because of this very education. 
In acquiring it he has neglected to learn some honest trade, 
and even if he still had the power and the desire to make up 
for lost time, his education would not permit it, for by using 
his hands to work he would necessarily forfeit his honor as an 
educated man. 

Will there be a natural reaction for the cure of this disease? 
We might suppose so. Many signs seem to indicate that edu- 
cation is about to fall in value. It strikes me that the word 
is beginning to take on a suspicious flavor, similar to that of 
the word enlightenment (Aufkldrung) at the opening of the 
century. This invariably happens when a thing becomes 
too common. We are reminded of the barber's appren- 
tice who did not believe in God, even if he was only a 
barber's apprentice. " Culture " (Bildung) has, as it were, 
come to take the place of u enlightenment." The word first 
came into vogue toward the close of the last century, in the 
neo-humanistic circles that gathered around Herder and 
Goethe. The full term was: Bildung zur Humanitat; it sig- 
nified the fashioning of the inner man after the Hellenic 
pattern, as distinguished from the model of the French cour- 
tier on the one hand, and that of orthodoxy and pietism on 
the other ; compared with these, the Hellenic ideal of culture 
seemed to represent the free and natural education of the human 
being. How the word has degenerated since those days ! 
What is meant at present when the word culture (Bildung) is 
mentioned in a conversation ? If I can trust my philological 



SPIRITUAL LIFE AND CULTURE 555 

Instincts, I should define it about as follows : He is cultured 
or educated who can talk upon all topics in which society is 
interested, about Goethe and Schiller, Raphael and Michael 
Angelo, Plato and Kant. It makes no difference whether he 
feels what these men felt or understands their thoughts, 
whether he has caught a breath of their spirit or not, so 
long as he can talk about them. But in case he is unfamiliar 
with these names, as was the honest Hermann with Tamino 
and Pamina, then, whatever else he may be and have, feel and 
think, he is lacking in culture. And there is still another 
way by which we can tell whether a man is educated, at 
least in Germany ; namely, by his ability to use foreign terms. 
Foreign terms are borrowed from foreign languages, and so 
by using them we give people to understand that we do not 
belong to the rabble who speak only the common vernacular, 
but to the privileged classes, who could also speak Latin or 
French if they chose. 

We often hear complaints of the prevalence of semi-refine- 
ment or half -culture (Ralbbildung) , and lay the blame on the 
Realschule or the Einj 'dhrigenschein, or what not. I should 
say that semi-education was precisely what we popularly mean 
by culture : the foreign terms, a smattering of everything, 
and the ability to talk on any subject. Semi-education means 
the possession of all sorts of knowledge which has not been 
digested and converted into a living force. The etymology of 
the word seems to suggest the same thought : Bildung signifies 
a process of organic formation, a process in which substances 
are taken up and assimilated through the inner formal prin- 
ciple. Halbbildung would then mean Bildung which has not 
been completed ; in which substances have been received, but 
have not been assimilated and converted into organic forces, 
and thus lie in memory as undigested masses, and as foreign 
bodies overburden organic life. Hence half-education may be 
acquired in gymnasia and universities as well as in the Realr 
Bchulen and young ladies' seminaries. And the reverse may 



556 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

also happen : a plain man who has never gone further than 
the Volksschule may have a complete and thorough education ; 
if his inner life is consistently and harmoniously developed, if 
he has digested and, as it were, converted into organic sub- 
stance and living force whatever opinions and experiences 
he has acquired at school and in the world, he is a well- 
educated man. Not the mass of material, but the inner form 
is what makes education. Matter without form produces 
semi-education, over-education, pseudo-education, or whatever 
we may call this degeneration of the soul. 

3. Art, like philosophy, is also based, partially at least, on 
pure contemplation. If play is, in distinction from work, the 
free exercise of powers, and not a means to an external end, 
while in work an external effect, or product, is desired, art, as 
well as philosophy, belongs in the category of play. All occu- 
pation with the fine arts is playful or purposeless exercise of 
sensuous -spiritual powers. When we contemplate a statue or 
a painting, ': is not our purpose to learn anything, as is the 
case when we study a drawing in a physical or technological 
text-book. We desire nothing but to exercise our perceptive 
and presentative faculties without having an end in view. 
When we listen to a song or hear some one " play " an instru- 
ment, we simply desire to follow the movement of the notes : 
when we are reading a poem or seeing a " play," we abandon 
ourselves to the " play " of the imagination which the poet 
sets a-going. 

The production of works of art is nowadays, it is true, 
not regarded as play but as work, and it is apt to be so in the 
sense that the aim is to make an economic use of the product. 
In their origin, however, art and play are closely connected 
All peoples, even the most savage, decorate their utensils, 
pots, weapons, and clothes are covered with all kinds of orna- 
mental lines, marks, and drawings; it is the same play in- 
stinct that impels the child to cover its slate and the walls with 
figures. Song and music were originally connected with the 



SPIRITUAL LIFE AND CULTURE 557 

dance and festival plays. The same impulse to play created 
the first poems, the epic narratives: a motley crowd of charac- 
ters and events passing before the inner eye of the singer and 
hearer. The original epic was actually sung. An epic has 
become known in our century which was transmitted by 
word of mouth, the Finnish epic. In the long night of the 
polar zone, the Finns passed the time by reciting rhythmical 
stories of the gods and heroes in dialogue form • each in- 
dividual could repeat them or invent new ones himself. 
Hence the peculiar variations in the transmission of the epic. 
Among us the fairy-tale (Marcheri) has been handed down in 
the same way ; the infant mind, which is itself full of plaj 
and poetry, preserves this fragment of living poetry even 
for adults ; or did preserve it, for now that these stories are 
printed and a dozen new, artificially- made books of fairy- 
tales are produced every Christmas, this last survival oi 
living poetry, whose obscurity was its salvation, is dying out. 
When the printed fairy-tales reach the last mountain-hut, 
the poetical narrative as a living function ot the people will 
be a thing of the past. 

Art is also partially rooted in feeling and willing. Every 
strong emotion is accompanied by the desire to express and 
communicate itself. The joys and pangs of love, martial cour- 
age and sadness, yearning and reverence, seek and find relief 
in poetry and song. By the rhythmical-melodious arrange- 
ment of words and notes, the feelings themselves are aroused. 
And so the will and the mood of a people and an age are 
expressed and objectified in the great creations of epic and 
dramatic poetry as well as in the creations of the plastic arts 
and architecture. Gothic art manifests the mood of tower* 
ing supernaturalism, which contemns and repels the earthly 
sensuous world, — corporeality with its pleasure and heavi- 
ness. In the Renaissance the opposite mood asserts itself ; 
its architecture and fine arts, its costumes and house-fur- 
nishings, its poetry and music, all of them express the 



558 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

determination of the age to abandon itself, with the enthu* 
siasm and exuberance of youth, to the contemplation and 
enjoyment of everything charming and agreeable, till it seems 
as though the age felt the need of making up for lost 
time. 

It is the highest function of art to shape and express the 
ideals which the spiritual life of a nation creates. The ideal 
world reaches its highest expression in a supramundane- 
superhuman world, in which perfection has absolute reality 
for faith. Thus art becomes the organ of religion. Its high- 
est function is to realize the innermost cravings of a people, 
to contemplate its ideas ot perfection in concrete forms. So 
the plastic arts produced concrete representations of the 
Greek gods, — glorious figures in which the Greek's ideals 
of human culture were made visible to him. Similarly Greek 
poetry gave to the people in its epics and its dramas living pic- 
tures of divine and human excellences, such as courage, loyalty, 
devotion, magnanimity, prudence, wisdom, piety. — Christian 
art, too, has performed the same necessary function of convert- 
ing the realm of faith into a world of concrete intuitions. The 
entire mediaeval art, architecture, sculpture, painting, music, 
and poetry, had for its sole object the presentation of the 
world of Christian faith, in the form which this had assumed 
in the Germanic mind, to the senses and the entire man. 1 

We may therefore describe tke effect of art upon the soul as 

1 A. Diirer so conceives the function of art : " The art of painting is employed 
in the service of the church, and so manifests the passion of Christ and many other 
good examples, also preserves the forms of men after their death." (See Thans- 
ing, A. Diirer.) Milton has the same conception of the art of poetry : " Poetical 
powers are the inspired gift of God rarely bestowed ... in every nation, and are 
of power, beside the office of a pulpit, to imbreed and cherish in a great people 
the seeds of virtue and public civility, to allay the perturbation of the mind, and 
set the affections in right tune ; to celebrate in glorious and lofty hymns the 
throne and equipage of God's almightiness, and what he works and what he 
suffers to be wrought with high providence in his church ; to sing victorious 
agonies of martyrs and saints v the deeds and triumphs of just and pious nations, 
doing valiantly through faith against the enemies of Christ; to deplore the gen- 
eral relapses of kingdoms and states from justice and God's true worship." 



SPIRITUAL LIFE AND CULTURE 559 

follows : (1) It exercises our sensuous-spiritual powers and so 
fills our leisure moments with the purest and most beautiful 
recreation and pleasure. (2) It satisfies and quiets the crav- 
ings of the emotions to express themselves, by providing them 
with the necessary stimulus and affording relief. (3) It raises 
the soul above the world of work and need, struggle and 
misery, to a world of freedom and ideals, and purifies it from 
the dust of base feelings and passions with which the affairs 
of daily life cover it. The inner uniformity and harmony 
which constitutes the essence of all art also brings uniformity 
and harmony into the soul. Finally, (4) it binds together 
and unites the members of the nation, nay, all the members 
of a sphere of civilization ; all those who have the same faith 
and the same ideals. Opinions and interests differ and pro- 
duce discord ; art presents in sensuous symbols the ideals 
which are cherished by all, and so arouses the feeling that all 
are, in the last analysis, of the same mind, that all recognize 
and adore the same ultimate and highest things. Hence the 
union of art with the public festival. In the festival the 
inner unity of the members of a people seeks to reveal itself : 
art is appealed to to satisfy this craving of the popular con- 
sciousness. Art fills all hearts with the same feelings, and 
makes the popular soul conscious of its unity. Whatever else 
may divide the people is for the moment forgotten, and the 
identity of the innermost sentiments becomes a source of 
pure joy. 

4. If this is a correct description of the nature and effect 
of art, it follows that it is a universally human function. 
Art is not something peculiar to a few nations and to a 
few individuals among them, but all nations have an art to 
express their emotions, as they have a language to express 
their ideas. And just as all the members of a people partici- 
pate in its language, though not equally, so all of them, in 
a measure, participate in its art. 

When we compare this conception of art, which seems ad- 



560 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

equately to express its real function in the life of a people, with 
its present position in our national life, we readily observe a 
discrepancy between the definition and the facts. When we 
speak of art in our days, we are not apt to mean by it some- 
thing that is intended for all, or that has an essential bearing 
on one's life. Art is mostly regarded as a kind of luxury, 
which only the few can enjoy whom fortune has given more 
freedom and leisure ; the masses, the uneducated, must work 
and content themselves with an occasional solid pleasure. 
That is the tacitly assumed and often also openly expressed 
opinion of many educated persons. 

This view, it must be confessed, is not very far from ex- 
pressing the actual status of art in our civilization. The 
sculptures and paintings which we exhibit in our galleries and 
museums, in our art exhibitions and salons, are, of course, not 
intended for the masses ; indeed, the people do not visit them, 
and when they chance to do so, they feel out of place, as their 
embarrassed movements and looks indicate. Nay, it not in- 
frequently happens that a person reared in simple surround- 
ings and removed from the influences of culture, suffers from 
another kind of embarrassment in the presence of such works 
of art, the embarrassment of shame. He sees all kinds 
of naked forms around him, classical nakedness, Renaissance 
nakedness, and modern nakedness, so that the unaccustomed 
eye wanders about seeking for a place upon which to rest. 
So, too, the great masses of people have only a modest share 
in what we call our national literature. Song and music 
are most enjoyed by the multitude, by which I do not, of 
course, mean arias and symphonies. Moreover, a closer in- 
vestigation would, I believe, show that art does not even con- 
stitute a very essential element in the lives of many of our 
educated men. It is largely merely a matter of show ; a few 
paintings and engravings, the usual gilt-edged editions in the 
glass case, and the inevitable piano belong to the furniture 
of a " refined " home ; similarly a smattering of the history 



SPIRITUAL LIFE AND CULTURE 561 

of literature and art forms a part of the furniture of a 
cultivated mind. 

How shall we account for this discrepancy between the 
reality and the ideal ? Some may, perhaps, feel inclined to 
say : Well, this is the inevitable obverse of higher civiliza- 
tion ; the number of persons capable of keeping pace with 
progress will naturally diminish, the greater the demands 
that are made. All progress depends upon the division of 
labor and differentiation ; and the splitting up of the people 
into the educated classes and the masses is a necessary 
consequence. 

I cannot convince myself of the truth of this assertion. It 
is in a measure true of knowledge that the more it grows, 
the further it becomes removed from the masses ; the pro- 
ducts of science are by their very nature accessible only to 
the few persons who have the time and strength for difficult 
and protracted preparation. It seems to be different, how- 
ever, in the case of art. Science speaks to the intellect in 
concepts, art appeals to the sensibility through percepts ; the 
capacity to be impressed by its products seems to be more a 
matter of natural aptitude than a specific accomplishment to 
be acquired by practice, although this aptitude may be de- 
veloped and intensified by exercise. If art expresses the sum 
total of the emotions of a people, it must surely have some- 
thing to say to every child of the people. Not everybody can 
be a creative artist nor an expert art critic, but all, we should 
imagine, ought to be capable of enjoying art, although in 
different degrees. 

Historical facts also seem to bear out this view. Greek art, 
at its climax, was, as everybody knows, by no means inferior 
to the art of the present, either in content or in form. Never- 
theless, it was not intended for a small circle of educated 
persons : iEschylus and Sophocles did not compose their 
dramas, and Demosthenes did not write his orations, for 
college graduates, but for the entire community. So, too, 



562 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

the Athenian citizens must have understood and appreciated the 
value of the works of architecture and sculpture which adorned 
the city in the fifth century ; indeed, these could not have arisen 
had not the citizens first convinced themselves of their value. 
And if reference be made to the slaves who enabled the 
citizens to enjoy leisure and culture, I call attention to 
mediaeval art. It, too, possessed a large degree of creative 
power and sense of form, wealth and depth of content. It, 
too, did not work for a small circle of educated persons, but 
for the entire people. Mediaeval art served the church ; it 
was the essential object of architecture and sculpture, paint- 
ing and music, to make the service solemn and dignified. 
The church and the divine worship, the sacraments and the ser- 
mon, were intended for all ; likewise the arts which labored for 
them. Who would have built the countless houses of worship 
which filled the mediaeval cities, had not their value been 
universally recognized ? They were not built by the state 
with the money of the tax-payers, as the result of an 
abstract consideration that something ought to be done for the 
church or for art, but by corporations and citizens, for the 
glory of God, for their own pleasure and edification, and as 
a monument to their artistic and self-sacrificing piety. 
Where should we find the courage and the means to con- 
struct such buildings to-day ? Why, for decades and decades 
we have been taking up collection after collection throughout 
the length and breadth of the land, and have been appealing 
to the gambling instinct, which has been deprived of other 
forms of satisfaction, and yet we hardly succeed in raking 
together the sums necessary to complete the structures which 
a single city or corporation undertook to build in those days. 
So, too, the countless paintings and sculptures which adorned 
the interior of the churches appealed to all. Each one saw 
before him artistic representations of the sacred stories and 
personages that lived in every heart, and was inspired by 
them to joyful veneration. 



SPIRITUAL LIFE AND CULTURE 563 

Is this not an artistic effect ? I believe it is the high- 
est, for ultimately the artist must care more for reverent 
contemplation than for hasty criticism. True, it was not the 
artistic form, the coloring and drawing, which constituted the 
chief source of enjoyment, but the thing represented. But, 
perhaps the artist himself believed that the painting existed 
for the sake of its content and not for the purpose of showing 
his technical skill. The latter is not an end in itself, as the 
oft quoted maxim " art for art's sake " would have it, but an 
instrument in the service of an idea. Would a mediaeval 
painter have been willing to exchange those who looked at his 
pictures for those who visit our art galleries ? It is doubtful ; 
what sensible artist would not prefer to have, instead of pro- 
fessional and non-professional art critics, who gabble about 
coloring and the art of handling the pencil, about subject and 
composition, people who simply enjoy first what the pictures 
represent and then their truth and beauty. 

I do not therefore believe that the discrepancy between art 
and our actual life is due to the high state of perfection which 
our civilization and art have reached. It is due, rather, to a 
peculiar defect in our spiritual life : we are lacking in national 
feeling ( Volkstumlichkeif). 

The reason for this is that our literature and art are not, 
like those of the Greeks, the product of a steady national 
growth. Twice has our inner life been seriously interrupted 
in its development, first by our conversion to Christianity, then 
by our conversion to antiquity ; the former marks the begin- 
ing of the Middle Ages, the latter of the modern times. In 
each case we consciously repudiated our past, we experienced 
a spiritual regeneration, so to speak. At first our people 
adopted the religion and civilization of Christianized an- 
tiquity. The religion and civilization which the church 
brought were undoubtedly vastly superior to what we had our- 
selves. Still, the conversion at the same time produced a 
great convulsion : a nation cannot change its religion as it 



664 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

changes its clothes. Religion is the soul, the inner life of a 
people, it permeates everything, its language, its poetry, its 
customs, its institutions, its ideals. It is well known with 
what jealous zeal the new religion persecuted and exterminated 
the old beliefs, the old sacred customs, the old poetry, the 
old ideals. 

The new religion took root among the people ; it was 
grafted upon the old trunk and produced vigorous offshoots : 
the knighthood, with its curious mixture of martial courage 
and Christian mercy, the monastic orders with their equally 
remarkable union of culture and asceticism, the scholastic 
philosophy with its combination of childlike faith and mascu- 
line thought, mediaeval art with its union of supernatural 
content and sensuous form. But then came the second great 
interruption, which we are in the habit of calling the Renais- 
sance. Here, again, we notice the same sudden break with 
the past as before. After our conversion to Christianity, the 
past was repudiated as paganism, and regarded with abhor- 
rence ; then the Middle Ages were condemned as filthy Gothic 
barbarism. The Humanists could not find terms enough to 
express their contempt for the Middle Ages : their language, 
their worship, their art, was nothing but detestable barbarism. 
Nay, even their religion was not Christianity, but an idolatrous 
scandal ; so judged the Reformation, and joined forces with 
Humanism to destroy the old forms of church life. The fear 
of idolatry led to the destruction of the entire sensuous element 
in religion, both on the mental side and in its outward man 
ifestation ; and with the decline of the worship of the saints, 
art lost its true object. 

Though four centuries have passed since this second inter- 
ruption of our historical life, its effects have not been overcome 
as were those of the first, during the Middle Ages. Our na- 
tional life has not assimilated classical antiquity, as it for- 
merly assimilated Christian antiquity ; we have not received 
it into our flesh and blood ; all our people do not share in it 



SPIRITUAL LIFE AND CULTURE 565 

Indeed it is doubtful whether this can ever happen, and 
whether it would be desirable. The civilization of the Re- 
naissance has taken hold of only a small fraction of our pop- 
ulation, of that part, namely, which receives a classical edu- 
cation in our humanistic gymnasia; an important fraction, 
it is true, the destined leaders and teachers of our people 
in all the spheres of life. But this group does not whollj 
stand within the pale of our popular life, it constitutes a 
special stratum by the side of it, or, if we choose, above it : 
the learned class which is sharply separated from the people 
by its so-called classical education. This chasm between the 
learned and unlearned did not exist until the Renaissance. 
During the Middle Ages a distinction was made between the 
clergy and laymen ; this was a difference in education, but it 
was not great ; the clergy knew Latin, the language of the 
church, but their conception of life and the world did not 
differ from that of the knight and the peasant. Besides, ow- 
ing to celibacy, these differences in education did not become 
hereditary. Not until the sixteenth century was the line 
sharply drawn between the people and the cultured classes. 
Not only do the latter differ from the former in scientific or 
technical knowledge, but their entire conceptions of life differ 
from those of our people, and they are proud of it. They 
turn to classical antiquity for what they cannot find at home : 
the perfect development of man, an ideal which is realized 
only in a more or less crippled form outside of the ancient 
world. The worship of antiquity has become something of a 
second religion with scholars, a more aristocratic religion 
in which the masses do not, of course, participate. This 
worship reached its climax in the second Renaissance, the 
continuation in the eighteenth century of the first Renais- 
sance, which had been interrupted by the great religious 
movement of the sixteenth century. Our gymnasia were re- 
established at the beginning of this century as temples of thii 
** religion of the educated, " Homer being their sacred book* 



566 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

What we call our national literature and art is largely the 
possession of this group of the classically educated. It is not 
rooted in our popular life, but in the classical schools ; hence 
its general classical character. Our so-called classical litera- 
ture, it is true, no longer employs the ancient languages, like 
the neo-Latin and neo-Greek poetry of the sixteenth century ; 
still it loves to follow the old classical models in form and 
content. Indeed, every day we hear the assertion calmly 
made that to understand our classic authors the classical educa- 
tion which the gymnasium gives is a necessary prerequisite. 
The statement is perhaps somewhat exaggerated, owing to a 
desire of its defenders to justify the gymnasium, but who will 
deny that there is a germ of truth in it ? 

The other arts also betray classical traits. Take architect- 
ure, not to mention sculpture, which is a purely exotic growth, 
except in so far as it produces portrait statues. Architecture 
is not a product of the handicraft, but is learned in academies ; 
it is not rooted in our needs and in our life-conditions, but in 
learned traditions. We arbitrarily choose a certain style, and 
then do the best we can to adapt the form to the conditions. 
Thus arise those curious formations which may be seen in our 
streets, — pillars of brick topped with tin to give them the ap- 
pearance of Corinthian columns ; plaster-of-paris consoles 
glued to wooden cornices apparently to support them, — until 
they drop off; buildings which want to look like Grecian 
temples and to that end surround themselves with columns, 
but remembering that they are intended for picture galleries 
insert walls and windows between their columns so that one half 
of the column projects from the masonry — a miserable sight. 
Painting is more indigenous to the soil ; music, most of all ; 
is it because music had to develop independently, owing to 
the fact that Greek music — one is tempted to say, for- 
tunately — was not preserved ? 

I do not wish to be fault-finding or to criticise history : far 
from it. This would be a presumptuous and futile undertak* 



• 



SPIRITUAL LIFE AND CULTURE 567 

ing. Things are what they are, historical things among the 
rest. It was doubtless impossible for the German people 
to pursue their course in isolation, and I am also willing to 
believe that they chose the best of all possible courses. But 
our modesty cannot hinder us from confessing that our culture, 
such as it is, though it be the product of the historical condi- 
tions of our people, does not satisfy all, that art, especially, 
does not do for us what it could do for a nation. It will not 
hinder us from confessing that this is not a pleasing state of 
affairs. One fact, particularly, is plain, that the life of the 
masses is impoverished and stunted by the lack of beautiful 
and elevating pleasures. Their enjoyments are vulgar. In 
their work they are respectable, perhaps also in their priva- 
tions and sufferings, but their pleasures strike more refined 
natures as repulsive and common. — But art itself deteriorates 
when it is not deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. 
When only the higher strata of society cultivate it, it easily 
degenerates into mere finery, into an object of luxury and 
show, or sinks to a still lower level, and becomes a pliable 
means of sensuous pleasure or love of diversion, and the crav- 
ing for sensation. Everybody knows from what miry depths the 
models for pictures and novels are occasionally taken in our age. 

Will our people ever again possess a great art, an art that 
is deeply rooted in its nature ? Will it, with creative power, 
evolve from its innermost essence new forms and new objects 
of artistic expression ? Will it succeed in appropriating such 
foreign ingredients as can be assimilated, and reject the rest ? 
No one can tell. One thing alone we can perhaps say : if the 
Germans and their neighbors are destined for a long life — a 
matter not of knowledge but of faith — they will again possess 
a world of universally recognized ideals, without which no 
nation can permanently exist ; and this world of ideals will 
again seek for sensuous expression in works of art. 

What form this art of the future will take — it is not to be 
subservient to erudition — historical prophecy cannot foretell. 



568 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

One thing, however, is certain : the narrowness of intellectual 
life, which is so favorable to the development of the creative 
fancy, is gone; mythology and legend, whose ideal figures 
furnished the art of the past with its material, will not return. 
Nor will the new art thrive upon the soil of luxury. Goethe 
knew what he was saying when he made the remark which 
I find quoted somewhere : " I hate luxury, it destroys the 
fancy." 



CHAPTER VI 

HONOR AND LOVE OF HONOR » 

1. The love of honor may be regarded as a peculiar modi 
fication of the impulse of self-preservation ; it aims at the pres- 
ervation of the self in consciousness, in our own consciousness 
as well as in that of others. We may call it the impulse of 
ideal self-preservation. 

By honor in the objective sense we mean the opinion which 
our surroundings have of us. By his character and his 
acts, every man arouses sentiments in his fellows which 
represent judgments of value : respect and disrespect, admir- 
ation and contempt, reverence and aversion. These feelings 
express themselves in judgments and are influenced, intensi- 
fied, and harmonized by other feelings, and thus arises some- 
thing like a general estimate of the value of the particular 
individual in society : this is his objective honor. — The 
phenomenon is lacking in animals ; only in man does intel- 
lectual and social life reach such a state of perfection and 
stability as to make possible this permanent reflection of the 
individual in the consciousness of the whole. 

There are as many different kinds of honor as there are 
groups or sets to which a man belongs. As the member of 
a political community he has a political honor ; it measures 
his value as a citizen. The different estates or orders repre- 

i [Aristotle, Ethics, Bk. II., ch. VII., Bk. IV., chs. VII.-X. ; Schopenhauer, 
Parerga, vol. I., Von dcm was einer vorstellt ; Jhering, pp. 480 ff. ; Porter, Part 
I., ch. XV. ; Hoffding, XI. c; Wundt, I., ch. III., 3. (c)-(e) ; James, Psychology, 
ch. X. ; Fowler and Wilson, Part II., ch. IV. ; Dorner, pp. 384-395 ; Runze, §§ 
67. ff. — Tr.] 



670 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

sent so many attempts at a systematic graduation of this 
form of honor. It is to be noticed, however, that the lowest 
class, that of the citizen as such (Staatsbiirger), is not re- 
garded as a real class. But that it exists, that it too has its 
political honor, is shown by the fact that penalties are in- 
flicted for breaches of it which deprive a man of his civil 
honorary rights (bilrgerliche JEhrenrechte) : he forfeits all 
offices, positions of trust, titles, decorations, and the right to 
serve as a soldier, voter, juror, witness, and guardian. The 
political un worthiness of the individual is thereby proclaimed. 

Besides the political honor, there is a special social honor. 
Everybody is a member of society ; his value as such is 
measured by his social honor. Social rank is essentially 
determined by birth, wealth, economic and mental achieve- 
ments. Social honor invariably seeks to convert itself into 
political honor, or, rather, to obtain the sanction of the state. 
The state satisfies this desire by the bestowal of titles and 
decorations. It makes the rich merchant a Komrnerzienrat, 
the successful physician a Sanitdtsrat, the celebrated scholar 
and professor a G-eheimer Regierungsrat. No office goes with 
these titles, they carry no duties with them ; the professor 
has no governing to do, nor is his advice ever sought, either 
in public or private matters. In the title the state simply 
recognizes and brings to public notice the social significance 
or social rank of the recipient. Decorations serve essentially 
the same purpose, that is, they proclaim the social and pol- 
itical rank of the possessor. — The title system is a product 
of the modern state, while the nobility is an older develop- 
ment. The latter too is based upon social distinction, which 
in turn depends upon wealth, birth, and personal achieve- 
ments. The state recognizes this by the bestowal of political 
privileges. 

Within these comprehensive groups there are narrower 
circles, each having its particular form of honor : we speak 
of the honor of a merchant, the honor of an artist, the honor 



HONOR AND LOVE OF HONOR 571 

of an officer, the honor of a student, etc. Its possession 
signifies that the individual satisfies the special demands 
which are made upon him by the particular set to which he 
belongs. 

Collective bodies, too, like individuals have their honor : a 
family has its family honor among other families, a class 
among other classes, a profession among other professions, 
a nation among other nations. The individuals have a share 
in this collective honor ; let an Englishman's honor be what 
it may among Englishmen ; among foreigners he has the 
honor of an Englishman in general. This collective honor 
is a highly important factor in all collective life ; it firmly 
cements the members of a community together. The family 
honor holds the members of a family together, even after 
they have lost their love and respect for each other ; all of 
them would have to suffer the disgrace of a single member. 

2. The significance of honor for human conduct is obvious. 
Since increase of honor produces pleasure, and decrease, pain, 
the love of honor tends to determine the will to seek for 
things which increase honor, and to shrink from things which 
diminish it. As a rule, honor is increased by everything 
that increases the power and influence of an individual, or, in 
other words, increases his capacity to help or harm others. 
We may mention such qualities as strength, skill, courage, 
military skill ; these are the qualities which are pre-eminently 
honorable in primitive society : the fearfulness of a man as 
an enemy and his value as a friend depend especially upon 
these. Then come wealth, which too means social power; 
birth and rank, which give power, namely through family con- 
nections ; and finally, prudence, knowledge of the law, and 
eloquence, qualities which, with the progress of political 
development, enable their possessors to attain to higher 
positions, either as leaders of the people or as officers of the 
state. The types depicted in the Greek epic are the simplest 
examples of these different forms of fame and distinction. 



572 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

Achilles stands for strength and courage ; Agamemnon for 
rank and wealth ; Ulysses and Nestor for prudence and elo- 
quence. Finally, the moral excellences also belong, in a cer- 
tain sense, to the qualities which bring honor and which the 
love of honor impels us to acquire. Intemperance, dissipa- 
tion, and extravagance bring disgrace, at least after they have 
ruined the person addicted to them, for then the friends who 
once applauded him forsake him. The opposite modes of be- 
havior, on the other hand, preserve wealth and strength, and 
so, ultimately at least, lead to honor. Falsehood, on account of 
its kinship with cowardice, if for no other reason, brings dis- 
grace ; likewise deceit and dishonesty. Veracity, trustworthi- 
ness, and uprightness, on the contrary, give one a good name. 
Thus honor becomes the guardian of morality ; the love of 
honor tends to determine the will to develop, first of all, the 
self-regarding virtues, and then also to acquire the social 
virtues, or at least to avoid injustice, falsehood, and crime. 

No detailed account is needed to show the importance of this 
impulse for the moral education of the race. The development 
of the human virtues in the species — courage, magnanimity, 
justice, veracity — the development of higher capacities, 
economic as well as mental, is hardly conceivable without 
this constantly active impulse. The regard for honor and the 
fear of disgrace produce a few good results even in the most 
unpromising cases : the sluggish nature is goaded to action 
by the fear of the disgrace of poverty ; the timid temper- 
ament is urged to make a stand for fear of being accused of 
cowardice ; the defiant and stubborn disposition is brought to 
terms by the fear of punishment and dishonor. Nor can we 
imagine the performance of great deeds without a strong love 
of honor. Fame, honor in its highest degree, was the most 
powerful motive in most of the men who brought about the 
great turning-points in history, — in Alexander, Caesar, 
Frederick, Napoleon. And great mental and artistic achieve* 
ments too would be inconceivable if there were no prospect of 



HONOR AND LOVE OF HONOR 573 

distinction, fame, and immortality in the memory of man. 
The love of fame, it is true, does not create the productive 
impulse, but without it the latter would not be apt to develop. 
Even among the great saints the prospect of fame was not 
without its influence : though they despised the fame of men, 
it was because they hoped to achieve a higher fame with God. 

The counter proof is furnished by cases where absolutely 
no regard is had for honor and disgrace. Persons who no 
longer have any fear of dishonor because they have no honor 
to lose, have reached the lowest depths of degradation. Such 
a group of outcasts exists in every metropolis ; professional 
criminals and prostitutes form its complementary halves : 
they are persons who have no more honor to lose and no hope 
to redeem it. In the work of Av^-Lallemant on the German 
criminal class * we find a detailed description of a kind of 
counter society,, formed by these " dishonorables," which has 
its own language, its own customs and usages, nay its own 
honor, the honor of thieves ; so impossible is it for men to do 
utterly without distinction and honor. Its language is a mix- 
ture of the dregs of all languages ; the language of one people 
particularly having contributed to it, a people which has lost 
its honor among the nations, the Jews. Its morality is a 
disgusting immorality ; the criminal honor, the degree of dis- 
grace which each one brings as his pledge, so to speak ; the 
more disgraced his name is in honorable society, the more 
distinguished he is in the counter society. 

3. The proper attitude of the individual towards honor, 
the virtue into which the impulse of honor is fashioned, we call 
the love of honor. We may define it as that habit of the will 
and mode of conduct which seeks to gain the recognition of 
the virtuous and good by means of honest and virtuous actions. 
Perhaps we may characterize it suitably, from two points of 
view, as proper pride and proper humility. 

Pride (which is not to be confused with haughtiness) is the 

I 4 vols., 1858 ff. 



574 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

antithesis of two degenerate forms of the impulse of honor : 
vanity and ambition. We call a man vain who is greatly 
pleased with himself and his achievements, and displays them 
•wherever he can, for the sake of receiving admiration and 
praise or at least flattery. The vainglorious man is not 
very particular in the choice of his admirers, or in the choice 
of the things for which he is distinguished. His constant 
aim is to be conspicuous and to make a show ; he is not 
satisfied unless he can attract attention to himself. A man is 
ambitious who makes honor the unconditional goal of his 
striving, that is, craves for honor and fame at the price of all 
other goods, even at the price of happiness and life, self- 
respect and a good conscience. Ambition especially strives 
for political reputation ; it craves for power, rank, and posi- 
tion. Vanity seeks to arouse admiration by personal qualities, 
by beauty and elegance, by brilliancy and wit, by long nails 
and stylish clothes. On the whole, we may call vanity the 
feminine, ambition the masculine, form of the degenerate 
impulse of honor. Women strive to please by all kinds of 
outward show, pretty figures and dainty faces, superfluous 
finery and tinsel culture. To please a man is as yet almost 
their only way of achieving outward distinction. The man's 
impulse of honor is usually determined by his birth and 
calling ; it aims at objective reputation : the honor of the mer- 
chant is wealth ; that of the prince, power ; that of the 
peasant, the size and productivity of his fields. Ambition 
based upon rank and family traditions, is more quiet, constant, 
and masculine in character, while that which aims at personal 
distinction, through literary, artistic, and scientific achieve- 
ments, approaches the feminine form of ambition, vanity. It 
is more self-conceited and excitable, self-consciousness is 
more vacillating, evidently because we are here concerned 
with personal accomplishments and achievements, and be- 
cause an objective standard of the value of such performances 
is not possible. We can measure the rank of a general, or 



HONOR AND LOVE OF HONOR 575 

the possessions of a merchant, but who can determine the 
poetical value of a poem, or the artistic value of a painting in 
comparison with others ? Here there is great room for illu- 
sions, and on illusion vanity chiefly feeds. It is evidently due 
to the prevalence of vanity in artistic and scholastic circles 
that envy, spite, hatred, calumny, and what else may be the 
effects of injured pride, are nowhere so common — unless it 
be among women afflicted with vanity — - as among the genus 
irritabile vatum, the irritable and irascible tribe of poets and 
authors, actors and artists. 

Und wenn du schiltst und wenn du tobst, 
Ich will es geduldig leiden. 
Dock wenn du meine Verse nicht lobst, 
Dann lass ich mich von dir scheiden. 1 

They need not be verses ; even a difference of opinion as to 
the age of two manuscripts or the second marriages of clergy 
men may constitute a ground for divorce, as we know from 
the history of the Vicar of Wakefield. 

The antithesis of vanity is pride. The vainglorious man 
is especially anxious to be considered somebody, and to rep- 
resent something, and then, if possible, to be somebody. The 
proud man, however, desires, above all, to be something, and 
then, if possible, to be considered somebody. But he is select 
in the means which he employs to gain a reputation ; he 
refuses to seek for fame in trivial and indifferent or, what 
is still worse, in absurd and disgraceful things, which the 
fashion of the day makes the centre of attraction for a fickle 
public. Indeed he despises the applause of the rabble 
altogether, it puts him to shame, he shrinks from it. He 
cares for the opinion of the best, their applause alone seems 
worthy of his efforts and fills him with happiness. But he 
consoles himself when he does not get it, for one thing no 
one can take from him : the cause itself to which he is de- 

1 [I will patiently bear your scoldings and ravings, but if you refuse to praiae 
my verses, I 'II get a divorce from you.] 



576 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

voting his strength, the consciousness of doing honest and 
efficient work, and the hope that the future will honor his 
sincere endeavors. At all events he refuses to have recourse 
to flattery and camaraderie in order to be admired in return. 
He does not allow the fear of displeasing persons in power 
to hamper him in his thoughts or actions. Kepler thus con- 
cludes the preface of his Weltharmonik : " Your forgiveness 
will please me, your anger I will endure ; here I cast the die, 
and write a book to be read, whether by contemporaries or by 
posterity, I care not : it can wait for readers thousands of 
years, seeing that God himself waited six thousand years for 
some one to contemplate his work." 1 These are proud words, 
and a proud man it was that uttered them. Compare with 
Kepler's proud demeanor the behavior of our modern scholars 
who unblushingly permit their pupils and colleagues to sing 
their praises to their very faces at all kinds of jubilees. 
Would not a little pride be more becoming ? It would, at 
least, make the profession more respected ; the people have a 
keen sense of propriety in such things ; fifty years ago the 
German scholar was held in higher esteem by the public 
than at present, perhaps, to some extent, because the use of 
incense among the living was much more limited than now. 
Nor is it to be regretted that titles and decorations were 
rarer, and that he was more often censured and ignored by 
his superiors than at present. Since then the calling has 
become considerably more aristocratic outwardly, but its inner 
worth and real fame have hardly increased in proportion. 

4. The other antithesis of the love of honor is proper 
humility. Pride manifests itself in the proper acceptance of 
honor, humility in the proper bestowal of honor. 

Humility is the opposite of haughtiness. The haughty man 
despises others, he treats them condescendingly. By refus- 
ing to show them proper respect, he endeavors to keep it for 
himself, as it were, and so to have an advantage over them. 

1 Reuschle, Kepler, p. 127. 



HONOR AND LOVE OF HONOR 577 

He does not seek converse with men, indeed he actually 
shuns it, because he finds that his expectations with respect to 
honor are not realized, and because he is not willing to satisfy 
the claims of others. It is evidently for this reason that 
haughtiness and pride are so easily confused. Haughtiness 
is, moreover, very commonly connected with servility. The 
man who treats those whom he regards as his inferiors with 
brutal haughtiness, crouches before the mighty. He uses 
all the arts of subservient flattery towards those who are 
unquestionably richer, more aristocratic, powerful, and influ- 
ential than he, in order thus to rise on the ladder of rank ; 
he revenges himself on those below him, and it affords him 
special satisfaction to kick his patron as soon as he has out- 
stripped him. In this way he gets back his capital with 
interest. 

Humility, on the other hand, gives every one the honor 
which is his due. It rejoices at the merit of others, and is 
ever ready to recognize ability, to admire excellence, and to 
reverence goodness. Genuine humility — this is its true sign 
— and genuine free-mindedness go together. The humble, 
free-minded man bows before what is truly honorable, even 
when it appears in menial form, and refuses to mere external 
power what belongs to the venerable alone. It is with pride 
that he sides with those who are outraged for the sake of 
truth and justice, and he considers it an honor to suffer dis- 
grace and persecution with them. The word of the judge on 
the judgment day applies to him : " I was in prison and ye 
came unto me." 

These are two well-known types : the servile-minded, full 
of haughtiness and baseness, and the free-minded, full of 
noble pride and reverence and deep humility. We Germans 
have an example of a man of the latter type in Freiherr von 
Stein. " Humble before God, highminded, magnanimous 
towards men, a foe of falsehood and injustice," so his epi- 
taph characterizes him. And Luther once said of himself in 

37 



578 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

commenting upon the fifty -first Psalm : " When I bow down 
and humble myself before God, I am scornful of the devil 
and the world, defiant and haughty in the Lord, and I despise 
all their dangers, strategy, and violence." We often find, upon 
the old German passion pictures, the two types painted side 
by side. The first type is represented by the soldiers and their 
voluntary assistants, who revile and maltreat Him who was 
forsaken by God and man ; they have no eye for His ador- 
able soul, or if they do obtain a glimpse of the sublime char- 
acter of the noble sufferer, their bitter hate becomes all the 
more intense ; nothing affords the base-born so much genuine 
pleasure as to be allowed, by those in authority, to spit at 
and to trample upon the pure and innocent. The other type 
is represented by the women under the cross. With fearless 
loyalty their tears acknowledge the outcast of men ; their 
hearts do not cease revering Him. The man who listens to 
his intellect is seduced by it to forsake and to deny Him : His 
cause is lost ; can it be the just cause when all in authority 
and all competent judges decide against it ? The sacred 
story shows its profound and eternal significance even in such 
features as these. The sins that women have committed 
through vanity, women have again atoned by their faithful 
and unswerving devotion and adoration. Nothing in this 
world is stronger than the heart of a humble and free- 
minded woman. There is no higher praise for women than 
that which they found beneath the cross. 

5. With true pride and true humility, true self-esteem 
finally is joined. The proper estimate of oneself may be 
defined as a mean between pusillanimity and supercilious- 
ness. Pusillanimity is habitual faint-heartedness in regard 
to the problems which life sets before us ; it weakens our 
capacity to act and to suffer. Superciliousness springs from 
underestimating our tasks and overestimating our powers ; it 
regards exertion as superfluous, and so is no less produc- 
tive of failure than faintheartedness : superciliousness goeth 



HONOR AND LOVE OF HONOR 579 

before destruction. When this attitude is assumed towards 
others, it becomes haughtiness, and if it is not flattered, ends 
by abusing them, conduct which the Greeks aptly characterize 
by the word vftpis. True self-esteem, on the contrary, which 
marks the efficient man, gives him confidence in his own will 
and powers, and upon the latter depend security in decision 
and firmness in execution. But the great conception which he 
has of his task guards him against arrogantly overestimating 
his ability. He is not easily satisfied with himself ; it is no 
consolation to him to see others behind him; he keeps the 
great and excellent men before his eyes. When it comes to 
dividing the common work, he is always ready to assume the 
more difficult tasks, but when honors and gifts are distributed, 
he does not insist upon obtaining an equal share. Whenever 
life places him in a position to solve great public problems, 
we have the type of the highminded man (fMeyaXo-xfrv^o 1 ;), a 
man who esteems himself capable of great things and is 
worthy of them. 

The proper estimate of one's own worth, of one's own 
powers and achievements, knowledge of self, constitutes a 
particularly difficult problem of self-culture. Ever since the 
Delphic inscription, Know thyself, first attracted the atten- 
tion of the Greeks, the question concerning the importance 
and possibility of self-knowledge has been much discussed. 
The opinions of Greek thinkers and poets are found in 
Schmidt's Ethih der Qriechen} Reference is also made in 
that work to Goethe's words in his /Sprilche in Prosa : " How 
can we learn to know ourselves ? Never by contemplation, 
but always by action. Try to do your duty, and you will 
know at once what is in you." It is impossible to gain a 
knowledge of oneself as an object in a theoretical way, by re- 
flection ; by living, suffering, and acting we reach a direct 
knowledge of what we may expect of ourselves, so that we 
shall not overstep our limits in choosing our tasks and our 

1 H., 394 ff. 



580 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

attitude in certain positions and towards certain persons, but 
will choose and ■ do the proper thing with sure tact. There is 
no other form of self-knowledge than this instinctive knowl- 
edge ; an abstract psychological self-knowledge based upon 
analysis and comparison is not possible. This is Schopen- 
hauer's view also ; he calls attention to the fact that we 
cannot, in spite of all looking-glasses, even picture to our- 
selves our own bodily physiognomy, like that of others, because 
we cannot cast upon ourselves the " look of estrangement " 
which is the condition of the objectivity of perception. 1 We 
do not see ourselves acting, any more than we see ourselves 
in motion; the agent cannot observe himself while acting, 
for which reason too, as Goethe says, he has no conscience 
as an agent. His attention is fixed solely upon the ex- 
ternal goal. 

Yes, we may say, the inclination to reflect upon oneself is a 
symptom of a morbid condition ; it springs from a lack of self- 
reliance. And reflection is by no means able to remove the 
defect, — it merely intensifies it ; self-reflection resembles the 
conduct of the gardener who digs up the roots of his trees 
to see whether they are sound. This, too, is Goethe's idea. 
In a conversation with Eckermann he rejects the demand, 
" Know thyself," as a curious demand which no one has 
ever satisfied, and which no one really ought to satisfy. 
"Man is bound by all his thoughts and strivings to the 
external, to the world around him, and he is kept busy in 
understanding this world and in making it serviceable to him- 
self, so far as his purposes require. Of his own self he becomes 
aware only when he enjoys and suffers, and so too his sorrows 
and joys alone teach him what to seek and what to avoid. In 
other respects, however, man is an obscure being ; he knows 
not whence he came nor whither he goes ; he knows little 
of the world and less of himself. I do not know myself, 
and may God preserve me from it." Here, again, Schopen- 

1 Parerga, II., § 343. 



HONOR AND LOVE OF HONOR 581 

hauer offers himself as an interpreter of Goethe. The 
"obscure being" is the will, which only gradually manifests 
itself, as Schopenhauer shows in the instructive nineteenth 
chapter of the second volume of the World as Will and 
Idea. 

6. Modesty may be denned as the outward form of the love 
of honor. The modest man shows by his entire behavior 
that he does not despise the opinion of others, but that he 
desires to make an effort to gain their esteem. The opposite 
demeanor is that of the overhearing man ; his acts proclaim 
that he does not care what others may think of him. When 
such conduct is displayed toward especially venerable persons, 
we call it insolence and impudence, the sign of a low and 
servile disposition. 

Modesty is the natural habit of youth. The young have 
no independent opinions of what is good and proper, but are 
governed by the opinions of others. Hence it behooves the 
young man to respect the opinions of others ; modesty (pudor) 
is, as it were, the down of a youthful soul, not yet touched by 
the hands of the world. Forwardness or even insolence, on 
the other hand, is a sign of uncouthness. It is easily pro- 
duced by the awkward ignorance of teachers ; it is particularly 
encouraged by training the child to flattery and ostentation. 
The opening scene in King Lear is a grand picture al fresco 
of false education. Imagine that which is here condensed 
into the few lines of a scene as the outgrowth of a long-con- 
tinued abuse of the child-soul by paternal vanity, and you 
have a faithful picture of an educational method which is not 
infrequent either in homes or in schools, or wherever education 
is carried on. How often may not the foolish old man have 
asked his daughters whether they loved him, and how much 
they loved him ? His constant questionings have already 
destroyed all love and reverence in his older daughters ; they 
despise the old fool and flatter him. Cordelia, the youngest, 
has just left the care of a faithful nurse, so we may assume; 



582 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

she does not yet know how to flatter, and, fortunately, receives 
no more lessons in the art. 

Besides, modesty is becoming to every age, particularly to 
all those who appear before the public. It was usual for the 
authors of the last century to appeal to the " gentle reader," 
a more commendable custom than the one which came into 
vogue during the age of Romanticism and Speculative Phil- 
osophy, that, namely, of giving the reader to understand, first 
in the preface and afterwards on every possible occasion, 
between the lines and in the lines, that he was a very inferior 
creature, who would not, of course, succeed in fathoming all 
the profound thoughts there set forth. If, however, in spite 
of this, he still insisted on reading the book, he was told not 
to be discouraged in case the expected should happen, that we 
could not all be philosophers, and to remember also that due 
warning had been given him. It is very remarkable that the 
German public actually allowed itself to be bullied in this 
fashion, and for a long time was accustomed to admire as 
profound what it did not understand. Hence writers are not 
wanting to this day who speak in such a strain; insolence 
still continues to impress the average German. The spirit of 
English scientific intercourse forms a highly pleasing contrast 
to the German habit. Take such writers as Mill and Darwin : 
they speak to the reader as though he did them a favor by 
listening to them, and whenever they enter upon controversy, 
they do it in a manner which expresses respect and a desire 
for mutual understanding. The German scholar believes that 
it will detract from the respect due him if he does not 
assume a tone of condescension or overbearing censure. 
Examine the first scientific journal you may happen to pick 
up : even the smallest anonymous announcement breathes 
the air of infinite superiority, even the most friendly 
recognition is accompanied by the tacit or explicit assurance 
that the " reviewer," of course, understands the subject better, 
and that it is therefore really a pity that it did not fall into 



HONOR AND LOVE OF HONOR 583 

better hands. In case the " reviewer" differs from the 
writer, he does not rest satisfied until he has proved to his 
credulous readers that his opponent is a worthless and mali- 
cious fool. The philologists, especially, are tried and acknowl- 
edged masters in this field. Is it the occupation with the 
infinitely little that makes them so irascible and intolerant ? 

The foreign observer might, I fear, be easily led to believe 
that overbearing impudence was at present regarded as a 
specially estimable quality in Germany. When we examine a 
book of historical portraits like that published by E. von 
Seidlitz and look at the pictures of the last century or of the 
first half of the present century, we cannot help feeling that a 
great change has taken place in the physiognomies since that 
time : the " smart " (schneidig) face is the type affected by 
the modern generation. Think of the beards and their sym- 
bolical-physiognomical significance, which is expressed in the 
saying: Haare auf den Zahnen haben ; oderint dum metuant 
would be an appropriate motto for them. Or look at the por- 
traits in our so-called art exhibitions : each person repre- 
sented seems anxious to show his contempt for the observer 
in some way or other. The hand in his breeches-pocket, the 
tired, scarcely elevated, uninterested eye, the eye-glass in his 
extended left hand, the cigar stump from which the ashes 
have just been knocked off, — they all seem to say : What do 
I care for the rabble that is crowding around to see me ! 
And then let your gaze rest on the " smart " female who 
turns her back upon the spectator and grants him only a 
quarter view, or lets her big dog stare at him. 



CHAPTER VII 

SUICIDE i 

1. Suicide is a phenomenon peculiar to man. Its possi- 
bility, in a certain sense, depends upon the power of the will 
to emancipate itself from the natural control of the impulses. 
Animals do not reflect upon life as a whole, hence they have 
no freedom of choice. Freedom of choice and consequently 
the possibility of suicide depend upon the development of 
man's intelligence ; upon it also depends the possibility of 
insanity, a phenomenon which is likewise peculiar to human 
life, and which is closely connected with suicide. The animal 
intelligence is subservient to the will and therefore proof 
against such aberrations. 

Suicide is rendered possible by the growth of the intelli- 
gence, and its frequency seems to increase with the progress 
of civilization. From the large collection of statistical facts 
which the Italian H. Morselli has examined in his work on 
suicide, it may be seen beyond a doubt that there has been a 
constant and uniform increase in the number of suicides dur- 

1 [Statistical: Oettingen, Moralstatistih, § 59, pp. 737-785; Morselli, Suicide 
(abridged and revised translation in International Science Series) ; Masaryk, Der 
Selbstmord als soziale Massenerscheinung der modernen Civilisation. Ancient and 
Christian ideas of suicide: Lecky, I., 212-222, 331; II, 43-61. Philosophical 
views of suicide : justifying it : Hume, On Suicide ; Hartmann, Phenomenologie des 
sittlichen Bewusstseins, pp. 860 ff . ; Mainlander, Phil, der Erlosung, pp. 349 ff. ; con- 
demning it: Kant, Metaphysik der Sitten, vol. VII., pp.277 ff. (Harten stein's 
edition); Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, First Section (Abbott, p. 13); 
Schopenhauer, Welt als Wille, vol. I., § 69 ; Paley, Bk. IV., 3 ; Hoffding, XI., 
4 ; Diihring, Der Werth des Lebens, VI., 6 ; Porter, § 175 ; Runze, § 12. See also 
StKudlin, Geschichte der Vorstellungen vom Selbstmord, 1824. — Tk.] 



SUICIDE 585 

ing the nineteenth century in most of the European countries. 1 
In France, for example, the average number of suicides a year 
has risen from 54 to 154 per million inhabitants, during 
fifty years from 1826 to 1875 ; in Prussia, from 70.2 to 173.5, 
between 1816 and 1877. The increase is still greater in Ger- 
man Austria. There are countries, it is true, where the con- 
ditions are more favorable ; in England, for instance, the in- 
crease in the last fifty years seems to be scarcely noticeable, 
the average numbers oscillate around 65 per million inhabi- 
tants. In Norway the figures have even fallen from 80 to 70. 
The local distribution likewise shows the dependence of 
suicide upon the intensity of civilization. As a rule, suicides 
are the more frequent in European countries the more civil- 
ized the latter are. Here, too, however, the English form a 
conspicuous exception. The maximum figures (200-300) ap- 
pear in central Europe ; as we come nearer to the boundaries 
they diminish greatly, falling below 25 in Southern Italy, 
Spain, and Ireland, below 50 in Northern Italy, Scotland, 
Northern Sweden, and Russia, below 75 in Hungary, Poland, 
and Southern Sweden. The metropolitan and industrial local- 
ities give the largest averages. Saxony and Thuringia head 
the list with about 300 in Germany ; then come Brandenburg, 
including Berlin, 204, Schleswig-Holstein, including Ham- 
burg, 250 ; in Austria, Lower Austria with Vienna comes 
first, 254, followed by Bohemia, 158 ; in France, Paris forms 
the centre of irradiation from which the influence extends to 
an entire group of adjoining provinces, Seine, Marne, Oise, 
about 400 ; then comes the industrial North of France. The 
same law may be observed in the three capitals of the Scan- 
dinavian countries. A striking exception is formed by West- 
phalia and the Rhineland, Belgium and Holland, in which 
the average figures fall below 75, thus following the English 
group. 

1 Compare also Th. Masaryk, Der Selbstmord ah soziale Mcusenerscheinung dtf 
nodernen Civiiitation. 1881. 



586 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

It is further noticeable that within the separate countries, 
suicide seems to be more prevalent among the educated 
classes. Morselli gives the following data for Italy : x the 
group, letters and science, heads the list, with 614 per million 
male individuals belonging to this group ; then come de- 
fenders of the country, 404 ; instruction, education, 355 ; 
public administration, 324 ; commerce, 277 ; jurisprudence, 
218 ; medical professions, 201 ; industrial productions, 80 ; 
production of raw materials, 27. For France the following 
figures are given. 2 The number of suicides per million in- 
habitants is : domestic service, 83 ; commerce and transport, 
98; production of raw materials, 111 ; industry, 159; liberal 
professions, 510. Other statisticians reach different results, 
but they do not contradict the law that suicide is least 
common under the simplest conditions of life, and that it 
becomes more frequent as the conditions become more com- 
plex. — No one will seek the cause for this in higher educa- 
tion as such ; it is due to a number of concomitant phenomena. 
Such are deviations from the original and natural conditions 
of life and forms of labor ; one-sided exercise of the brain, 
especially when caused by premature mental labor ; ex- 
haustive and subtle forms of enjoyment ; violent desires and 
breathless pursuit of fortune, connected with great disappoint- 
ments and catastrophes. All these causes come together in 
the great centres of modern life, and here they are especially 
potent among the higher strata of the population. 

2. How is suicide to be judged morally ? 

Our natural feeling in reference to it is one of dread. Our 
horror of death is intensified by intentional homicide in every 
form, such as murder and execution. Nothing seems more un- 
natural and terrible than when an individual takes his own life. 
The church obeyed the common instinct when it regarded 
the suicide as an outcast, even refusing to allow him to be 

l P. 244. 
« P. 251. 



SUICIDE 587 

buried in hallowed ground. Among the old Greeks suicides 
were deprived of honors to the dead ; the act was looked 
upon as a violation of the sense of awe with which the an- 
cients regarded all violent interference with the natural order 
of things. 1 

In this respect, again, philosophy runs counter to popu- 
lar opinion. Among the Greek schools, the Stoics and Epicu- 
reans, particularly, strongly defend the moral possibility of 
suicide. They praise as a prerogative of man the freedom 
to leave life when it has no further value. 2 And a great 
number of men, prominent in public life and literature, made 
use of their freedom. The liberal philosophy of modern 
times shows the same general tendency. In his essay on 
suicide, Hume states the grounds on which suicide may some- 
times be justified. He shows that suicide is not necessarily a 
transgression of our duty to God, our neighbor, or ourselves. 
Not to God, for " were the disposal of human life so much 
reserved as the peculiar province of the Almighty that it 
were an encroachment of his right for men to dispose of 
their own lives, it would be equally criminal to act for the 
preservation of life as for its destruction. If I turn aside 
a stone which is falling upon my head, I disturb the course 
of nature " as much as if I turn a few ounces of blood from 
their natural channel. But if it be said that the natural 
impulse tends to self-preservation, the suicide may reply : I 
do not experience this impulse and may conclude therefrom 
that I am recalled from my station. Nor is suicide neces- 
sarily a breach of our duty to our neighbor or to ourselves. 
A man who is not able to do good to others but is a burden 
to them, who does not value his life but endures it as a 
torture, who can cut short his miseries without wounding 
anybody in the world, does no wrong by laying down the 
burden. On the contrary, he might say, " it is the only way 

1 Schmidt, Eihik der Griechen, II. 441 ; [Lecky, 212-214.— Tr.]. 

2 [See Seneca, Letters, 26, 70.— Tr.] 



588 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

that I can be useful to society, by setting an example of how 
every one has the power of freeing himself from misery.'' * 

Indeed, I do not believe that we must necessarily regard 
self-preservation as a duty, and voluntary death as a violation 
of duty. It is said that Frederick the Great carried a little 
bottle of poison on his person during the Seven Years' War, 
and that he intended to commit suicide in case he was made 
a prisoner, so that his country might not incur the danger of 
sacrificing its interests in order to ransom its ruler. It is 
obvious that such an act could not have been judged other- 
wise than the act of a captain who blows up himself and his 
ship to save it from falling into the hands of the enemy, or 
that of a pioneer who sacrifices his life in order to make a way 
for his family. Or take the case of Themistocles : banished 
by the Athenians, pursued by the Lacedaemonians, he finally, 
after many wanderings, finds a refuge with the Great King. 
When the Persian asks him to show his gratitude by promot- 
ing his plans against the Greeks, he puts an end to his life. 
Who will dare to reproach him for this, or who can tell him 
what else he ought to have done ? — But even when a man 
commits suicide in order to leave a life that has become 
intolerable, I have not the courage absolutely to condemn the 
act. When a man who has met with reverses or has been 
disappointed gives up like a coward, leaving his family in 
misery and want, we have a right to judge him harshly. 
But when a man can no longer endure a hopeless and pain- 

1 [See Hume's Essays, Green & Grose's edition, vol. II., pp. 405 ff .] It is said 
that when any one among the Massilians desired to drink the poison hemlock, he 
could obtain the sanction of the Council of the Six Hundred by giving his reasons 
for voluntarily departing from life. Those afflicted with incurable and painful dis- 
eases in Thomas More's Utopia are exhorted by priests and magistrates to do what 
is the best under the circumstances: no longer to nourish the torturing pain, but to 
die courageously. Such as are wrought on by these persuasions starve themselves 
of their own accord, or take opium, and by that means die without pain. Suicide 
without authority, on the other hand, is regarded as reprehensible. Carlyle, 
too, once expressed the opinion that there was no justice in depriving a man of 
the freedom to escape from unbearable tortures by voluntary death, as is done in 
England by laws and the pressure of public opinion. 



SUICIDE 589 

fill malady, when he feels that everybody is tired of him 
and would be materially benefited by his going, the impar- 
tial judge will view the case differently. True, we say: it 
is grand and ennobling for a person to bear great suffer- 
ings in patience ; we admire the hero in his suffering as 
much as the hero in battle. But — heroism is not a duty, 
it is meritorious to be a hero, but it is human not to be one. 
We cannot withhold our sympathy from one who sinks be- 
neath his load, or forget the word of charity : " He that is 
without sin let him first cast a stone." If a man says, 
Suicide is suicide, and as such reprehensible, we cannot 
argue with him ; his own feelings will contradict him in the 
given case. 

It is usually said that suicide is the result of cowardice. 
Cases undoubtedly occur in which this is so. A man without 
the power to act and to suffer meets with a misfortune ; he 
loses his head and sees no other escape but the rope, while a 
brave and energetic man would have overcome the difficulty 
with patience, and would have begun life anew. A banker 
squanders the money of his customers and then shoots him- 
self in the head : certainly this is cowardly and base. But the 
conditions are not always like these. A man who, like Them- 
istocles, after careful deliberation, makes up his mind, and 
then does what he thinks necessary, that he may not suffer 
or do anything unworthy of himself, will most likely regard 
the charge of cowardice as a rather pedantic jest. — And he 
will scarcely be affected by statements such as are found in 
Schopenhauer or the Neo-Platonists, that flight from life is 
flight from suffering ; that suffering, however, is the necessary 
means of deliverance from the will-to-live. He will perhaps 
answer : I am so free from the will-to-live that I am about to 
leave life, without feeling the slightest desire to renew it. 
The metaphysician may, if he chooses, worry over the question 
whether death will realize that purpose. I am not troubled 
about that, and I have no desire to enter upon these sophia- 



590 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

tical, rather than profound, discussions, in which the meta- 
physician tries to prove that voluntary death puts an end to 
life as a phenomenon but not to the will as a thing in itself. 

3. Nevertheless, I do not think that the condemnation of 
suicide is utterly groundless. If we consider, not the excep- 
tions but the rule, we must regard suicide as an act by which 
the suicide himself condemns his entire life : it is, as a rule, the 
ignoble end of an ignoble life. The wages of sin is death ; the 
words of the apostle are surely applicable to self-destruction. 
There are exceptions, perhaps numerous exceptions, but they 
do not disprove the rule. The popular judgment is the result 
of experience: Suicide is the natural conclusion of a sinful 
life. 

Here, again, we may refer to statistics. Difficult though 
it is to obtain definite answers to the question concern- 
ing the causes of suicide, we may ascertain certain general 
facts from the material at hand. In Morselli's table 1 in- 
sanity appears as the most frequent motive, embracing 
about one-third of all the cases for which a motive can 
be given. Then come physical diseases, weariness of life, 
vices (drunkenness and dissipation), afflictions (especially 
domestic troubles), misery and financial disorders, re- 
morse, shame, fear of condemnation. The figures are differ- 
ent for different countries, but they nearly agree in that 
each motive embraces one-tenth of all the cases. The small 
remainder of about one-twentieth is divided among the pas- 
sions, love, jealousy, and anger. We observe that suicide, as 
a rule, marks the end of a mentally, bodily, morally, econom- 
ically, or socially deranged life. Only in a relatively small 
number of cases are vices given as the direct cause. If we 
were to investigate the other motives, we should without 
doubt very frequently discover as their primary causes : per- 
verse desires and bad habits of life, either in the individuals 
themselves or in their parents and ancestors. Alcohol, es- 

1 P. 278. 



SUICIDE 591 

pecially, would be found to be the chief destroyer of the vital 
powers : it ruins the brain and creates an hereditary tendency 
to mental as well as bodily diseases and weariness of life ; it 
destroys economic welfare, it causes domestic troubles, it leads 
to criminal acts, which are expiated with remorse and disgrace. 
Thus suicide is a symptom and criterion of morally-diseased 
conditions. But we must be careful here. We should not 
regard a classification of nations and classes according to the 
frequency of suicide as a classification according to their 
moral worth. We should not forget that indolence is the 
best preventive of suicide. Nor should we lose sight of these 
facts in judging particular cases. Suicide is the confession 
of a guilty life, not a healthy confession, it is true, one that 
mark3 the beginning of a new life, but the desperate confes- 
sion of the complete inability to begin a new life. But in so 
far as it is a confession of the suicide's unwillingness to 
continue his old life, it is likewise a sign that not every spark 
of good has been extinguished in his soul. It is not the abso- 
lutely debased who take their lives, but those who do not 
possess the moral power to resist the pernicious impulses of 
their own natures and the unfavorable influences of their 
outward surroundings, and yet retain a sufficient sense of the 
better to be unwilling to endure their unworthy lives and 
evil deeds. The suicide of Judas Iscariot, it seems to me, 
in a certain measure disarms our judgment of him. That 
he was able to despair of what he had done, shows that he 
was not an utterly wicked man. Otherwise he would have 
behaved differently : he would have squandered his money in 
merry-making, or he would have put it to usury, and have 
achieved further distinction along the same lines. Instead of 
that, he pronounced judgment upon himself, finding it impos- 
sible to make atonement by submitting to earthly justice. 
Although it may not have been the proper atonement, it was 
nevertheless a kind of expiation. 



CHAPTER VIII 

COMPASSION AND BENEVOLENCE 1 

1. The sympathetic feelings and impulses form the natural 
basis of the social virtues. Such will-impulses are called 
sympathetic — in distinction from idiopathic impulses, which 
originate directly in the individual — as are aroused in us by 
transference from others, by a kind of contagion. All feel- 
ings have the tendency, though in different degrees, to spread 
by sympathy, as for example, pleasure and pain, fear and 
hope, love and hate, contempt and admiration, cheerful ex- 
uberance and earnest solemnity. The passions aroused by a 
speech in a large popular gathering are much more intense 
than those which arise when the same persons read or hear 
the same speech separately ; it seems as though the feelings 
were reflected from every feeling-centre in the meeting to 
every other one, and the rays concentrated in each individual 
as in a burning-glass. 

Not only is the human heart sensitive to sympathetic ex- 
citement, it likewise yearns deeply to have its feelings com- 
municated to and reflected from other hearts. When we 
are happy or in pain, we crave for human beings to reflect our 
joy or sorrow ; when we love or hate, admire or contemn, we 
strive to diffuse our feelings, and' are pained when our sur- 
roundings remain indifferent to us. Every strong emotion 

1 [Sidgwick, Bk. III., ch. IV. ; Stephen, ch. VI. ; Porter, Part II., ch. VII. ; 
Wundt, Part I., ch. III., 4 d, 5 ; Fowler and Wilson, Part II., ch. II. ; Spencer. 
Inductions, chs. VII., VIII. ; Ethics of Social Life, Part V., ch. I. ; Seth, Part II., 
ch. II. ; Runze, § 64. See also chapterg on Sympathy in the standard psycho* 
logies. — TrJ 



COMPASSION AND BENEVOLENCE 593 

impels us to utterance ; " out of the abundance of the heart 
the mouth speaketh." 

Blood-relationship is the natural starting-point of the 
sympathetic feelings. They manifest themselves most in- 
tensely and directly in the relation between mother and child. 
Originally one being, they, in a certain sense, continue to live 
one life, though with a separate physical economy. From 
this point sympathy extends to the members of the family, 
tribe, people, humanity, — to all living creatures. Sounds and 
gestures at first serve as a means of communication ; the more 
complicated and characteristic feelings and moods are trans- 
mitted by language and the symbols of art. 

Of all feelings pain seems most capable of arousing sym- 
pathy. Language shows this: we have a term for sympa- 
thetic pain only, in compassion (MitleitT). No terms have 
been coined to designate sympathetic pleasure or fear : (Mit- 
freude, Mitfurcht, etc.). — It is doubtless true that joy is not 
so easily transferred by sympathy. This may perhaps be ex- 
plained as follows. Pleasure and pain have not only the 
tendency to arouse sympathy, but also a tendency to arouse 
antipathy : happiness produces in the surroundings that 
peculiar form of pain which is called envy ; unhappiness, on 
the contrary, produces malicious pleasure {Schadenfreude). 
Everybody compares himself and his condition with that of 
others ; and since there is no absolute standard, we measure 
our powers, reputation, and possessions by those of our 
fellows. In case the comparison results in our favor, we 
experience pleasure, otherwise pain. The happiness of others, 
therefore, has a depressing effect, their unhappiness an 
elevating effect upon our self-esteem. 

These are well-known phenomena : they are never entirely 
wanting in man. The pessimistic philosophers love to 
dwell upon this truly partie honteuse of human nature. In 
the troubles of our good friends, says La Rochefoucauld, there 
is always something that does not displease us. And with 



594 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

still greater justice may we assert that there is always some- 
thing in the good fortune of our friends that does not entirely 
please us. A man wins the first prize in a lottery ; his 
friends congratulate him with mingled feelings of pleasure and 
pain, especially those who have drawn the blanks. A second 
one passes a brilliant examination ; he should beware of men- 
tioning it, especially to his less fortunate competitors. On 
the other hand, if he has met with a misfortune, if he has 
fallen from his horse, or has been hooted as a speaker, or 
has speculated and lost on the exchange, he need not let the 
fear of paining his good friends hinder him from telling it. 
He will have no difficulty in finding persons to pity him, 
but — well, everybody knows how little we care for the pity 
of our friends on such occasions. I do not mean to say that 
intense sorrow cannot be aroused by such misfortunes, and 
that genuine sympathy is not felt as an assuaging balsam, 
but the balsam is too apt to be mingled with the corroding 
poison which is called malicious joy {Schadenfreude). The 
only satisfactory mode of expressing sympathy would perhaps 
be to give a laughing spectator a blow in the face. We see, 
sympathetic pleasure and envy, compassion and malicious 
joy, are produced by the same causes. Compassion is accom- 
panied in consciousness by an intensification of our self- 
esteem ; it flatters our self-love. Sympathetic pleasure arises 
in conjunction with a diminution of the self-feeling, or, 
rather, it ought so to arise : for envy extinguishes the pleasure. 
Compassion, on the other hand, may exist together with an 
intensification of the feeling of power, or self-love. Genuine 
malice of course also extinguishes pity, but a feeling of true 
pity may easily arise in connection with the feeling of per- 
sonal security and superiority. Hence real sympathetic pleas- 
ure (Mitfreude) is rare, while compassion (Mitleid) is not 
at all rare. And for this very reason the ability to sym- 
pathize with another's joys is a much surer sign of a pure 
and unselfish nature than any other. Goethe, who was not in 



COMPASSION AND BENEVOLENCE 595 

the habit of praising himself, thus boasted of his lack of envy, 
when accused of egoism : 

Ich Egoist 1 — Wenn ich's nicht besser wiisste I 

Der Neid, das ist der Egoiste. 

Und was ich auch fur Wege geloffen, 

Auf ' m Neidpfad habt ihr mich nie betroffen. 1 

And to the compassionate souls who, even to this day, find 
fault with him for not having cared enough for the sorrows 
of others, he dedicates the following xenion : 

Auf das empfindsame Volk hab' ich nie was gehalten ; es werden, 
Kommt die Gelegenheit nur, schlechte Gesellen daraus. 2 

Indeed, pity may go with all the seven sins against the 
Holy Ghost. The Pharisee probably silently or openly added 
to his prayer — God I thank thee that I am not as other 
men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this pub- 
lican, — the word of pity : Of course, I am sorry for the poor 
devil over there ; it is his own fault, no doubt, but how easy 
it is to make the first misstep, when one is not eternally on 
one's guard ! All gossip is carried on in a tone of pity and 
listened to with an attitude of pity. Many a sentimental 
woman who has too much pity to tread upon a caterpillar, 
will, without compunction, wound a neighbor to the quick 
by her calumnies, or poison her husband's life with her con- 
stant bickerings and baseness. 

2. The sympathetic feelings, and especially compassion, 

1 QI an egoist? I know that I am not one. Envy is an egoist. And on what- 
ever ways I may have strayed, you have never found me on the path of envy .J 

2 [I have never had any respect for the sentimentalists ; they always turn out 
to be wicked knaves when the opportunity offers.] — In order to appreciate Goethe 
as a man, compare his reception by the older celebrities in German literature, 
e. g., Lessing or Klopstock, with his attitude towards the younger poets, e. q. t 
towards Schiller, when the latter appeared upon the scene. (See Victor Hehn, 
Gedanken uber Goethe, in the essay : Goethe und das Publikum.) Goethe was not 
a saint, and they are not doing him a kindness who insist on making an angel 
of him, they simply provoke the advocatus diaboli, such a one as has appeared 
against him in the person of Father Baumgartner. In spite of all, Goethe 
waa a good and great man. 



596 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

evidently have the same significance for conduct that all 
feelings have : their object is to guide the will in the business 
of self-preservation. Just as idiopathic pain impels the indi- 
vidual to remove the evil or the disturbance which threatens 
his own life, so compassion tends to determine the will to 
remove the causes of pain from the lives of others. In com- 
passion the solidarity of collective bodies manifests itself : the 
collective body feels the disturbance which first attacks a 
member as a menace to itself, and is thereby impelled to 
react in a manner conducive to its own self-preservation. 

In human life, however, feeling-impulses are never adequate 
guides of action, but require the regulative control of reason. 
We say of love and anger that they are blind. This is also 
true of pity. Therefore this impulse, no less than the selfish 
impulses, must, in order to promote welfare, be educated by 
reason, guided by wisdom. The virtue which thus arises, the 
general fundamental form of the social virtues, may be called 
benevolence and defined as that habit of the will and mode 
of conduct which tends to promote the welfare of the sur- 
roundings by hindering disturbances and producing favorable 
conditions of life. 

In benevolence, compassion (Mit-leiden) is overshadowed 
by well-doing, beneficence (Wohl-thun). The benevolent and 
beneficent man prevents or alleviates the sufferings of others 
without always having to feel compassion himself. Nay, a 
certain power of resistance is as much a part of benevolence as 
it is a part of courage to be able to resist idiopathic pain, or a 
part of temperance to be able to resist the temptations of sense. 
We do not expect a physician to suffer with the patient all 
the pains which he witnesses or perhaps causes himself. On 
the contrary, a certain obduracy on his part is the condition 
of beneficent action ; his compassion would obscure the clear- 
ness of his judgment and interfere with the steadiness of 
his movements. It is well known that physicians do not 
like to treat their nearest relatives because their pity in- 



COMPASSION AND BENEVOLENCE 597 

terferes with their skill. — But not only is freedom from 
pity needed to give the physician greater security in the prac- 
tice of his art; it also has a directly beneficial influence. 
The physician enters the sick-room and makes his examina- 
tion and gives his orders with business-like serenity ; he does 
not pity nor lament. His calmness has the most wholesome 
effect ; some of it is communicated to the relatives and the 
patient ; we feel as if we were in the presence of a power 
against which the evil is powerless. On the other hand 
consider the influence of visits from relatives and friends ! 
Frightened by the appearance of the patient and overwhelmed 
with pity, they break out into tears and complaints, and so 
increase his sufferings by their compassion and excitement. 

The same thing happens in other cases. A tender mother 
doubly suffers the pains which her child feels. If the child 
falls and hurts himself, she is overcome with pity. The 
result is that the child now really begins to feel the pain ; he 
does not cry out until he has been pitied, when he regards him- 
self as an object of pity. And the permanent effect of such 
treatment is a sort of whining nature ( Wehleidigkeit), which 
is not a pleasant endowment for life. Another mother, who 
loves her child just as much, bandages the wound if neces- 
sary, diverts the child's attention from the accident ; and lo ! 
the pain actually disappears when it is resisted. As a 
permanent consequence, the child, in a measure, becomes 
hardened to such things, and so receives the best possible 
equipment for life that education can give. To love one's 
children is natural, and neither a virtue nor an art, but to 
educate children is a great and difficult art, which demands, 
first of all, the ability to control one's natural tender im- 
pulses. We must not let our children know how much we 
love them, says an old wise maxim, which, however, does not 
suit the sentimentalism and vanity of modern mothers. 

Indeed, the same is true of every form of assistance that 
human beings can render each other. The sure and steady 



598 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

hand that helps and guides always presupposes that the per- 
son behind it lending aid is not overwhelmed by the sufferings 
of others. In charity work, for example, blind compassion 
results in evil : we spoil the recipients of our charity, and en- 
courage them to make demands, and when we can no longer, 
or are no longer willing, to satisfy these claims, we break out 
into complaints of ingratitude. 

We may therefore say : Compassion is the natural basis of 
the social virtue of active benevolence, but it is by no means 
a virtue itself, nor even, as Schopenhauer asserts, the absolute 
standard of the moral worth of a man. Like every phase of 
impulsive life, it must be educated and disciplined by reason ; 
in the rational will it is both realized and limited, — realized in 
so far as it attains to its end, the furtherance of human wel- 
fare, limited in so far as it is prevented from doing harm. 
And hence we may accept what Spinoza, agreeing with the 
Stoics, says, that the wise man will strive to rid himself of 
compassion, and, as far as human nature permits, to do well 
and to rejoice (bene agere et laetari)} 

Perhaps such wisdom is more common among women than 
among men. Courage in suffering, patience, a specifically 
feminine virtue, enables one calmly to bear first one's own 
and then the sufferings of others. The capable woman is not 
overwhelmed by her own pains, nor will she permit herself to 
be overcome by the pains of others. Calmly and deliberately, 
energetically and helpfully, she attacks the evil and conquers it. 

l Ethics, IV., 50. 



CHAPTER IX 

JUSTICE i 

We distinguished between two phases of benevolence: a 
negative phase — not to retard welfare ; and a positive phase 
— to promote welfare. These two phases, regarded as special 
virtues, give us the virtues of justice and love of neighbor. 

Justice, as a moral habit, is that tendency of the will and 
mode of conduct which refrains from disturbing the lives and 
interests of others, and, as far as possible, hinders such in- 
terference on the part of others. This virtue springs from the 
individual's respect for his fellows as ends in themselves and 
as his coequals. The different spheres of interests may be 
roughly classified as follows : body and life ; the family, or 
the extended individual life ; property, or the totality of the 
instruments of action ; honor, or the ideal existence ; and 
finally freedom, or the possibility of fashioning one's life as an 
end in itself. The law defends these different spheres, thus 
giving rise to a corresponding number of spheres of rights, each 
being protected by a prohibition : Thou shalt not kill, commit 
adultery, steal, bear false witness against the honor of thy 
neighbor, and interfere with his liberty. To violate the rights, 

1 [Aristotle, Ethics, Bk. V. ; Paley, Bk. II., chs. IX. ff .; Bk. III. ; Mill, Utilita- 
rianism, ch. V. ; Sidgwiek, Bk. III., chs. V., VI. ; Spencer, Inductions, chs. III.— 
VI. ; Justice ; Stephen, ch. V. (V.) ; Jhering, vol. L, ch. VIII. ; Porter, Part 
II., chs. VIII., IX., XV. ; Holland, Jurisprudence, chs. VII. ff. ; Wundt, Part I., 
ch. III., 4, Part III., ch. IV., 5 ; Bowne, chs. VIII., X. ; Fowler and Wilson, Part 
II., ch. III. ; Hyslop, ch. X. ; Smyth, Part II., ch. III. ; Mackenzie, ch. X. ; 
Seth, Part II., ch. II. ; Dorner, pp. 382-395 ; Taylor, The Individual and the 
State; Ritchie, Natural Rights; Tounies, Gemeinschaji und Ge&ellschaft, Bk. 
III.; Runze, § 64. — Tk.] 



600 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

to interfere with the interests of others, is injustice. All in- 
justice is ultimately directed against the life of the neighbor ; 
it is an open avowal that the latter is not an end in itself, 
having the same value as the individual's own life. The 
general formula of the duty of justice may therefore be 
stated as follows : Do no wrong yourself, and permit no 
wrong to be done, so far as lies in your power ; or, expressed 
positively : Respect and protect the right. 

Let us now examine the first part of this dual formula : 
Refrain from doing wrong — and the virtue of rectitude or 
probity to which it gives rise and which is often regarded as 
the whole of justice. Not to do injustice is usually considered 
the least that morality demands. But justice, in this sense, is 
by no means the easiest among the virtues, nay, perhaps it is 
one of the most difficult, because it is the most humble, and 
does not flatter our vanity by its grandeur and splendor, like 
magnanimity, liberality, or courage. Justice enjoins limita- 
tion of self by submission to a general rule. Man is by nature, 
like all animals, intent upon self-preservation and self-asser- 
tion. Every creature naturally acts according to the maxim 
that he is the centre of the universe, that all things are means 
for him and his purposes. This principle governs the attitude 
of animals towards each other ; it also governs our attitude 
towards them. We draw the final consequence of this prin- 
ciple when we kill and devour them, thereby declaring in 
unmistakable terms that we are the end and they the means. 

The natural man's attitude towards his fellows does not dif- 
fer from this. The child is, at the beginning of its life, naively 
inconsiderate. It has regard only for itself, it does what 
pleases it, without being seriously concerned about the effect 
of its behavior upon others. Only gradually does it come to 
understand that its action has consequences not only for 
itself but for others. Its attention is drawn to this fact by 
the reaction caused by its acts in others. It deprives another 
child of its plaything ; that child becomes angry and reacts 



JUSTICE 601 

accordingly. We may note a look of surprise on the face of 
the first child ; only gradually, after experiencing similar 
treatment from others, does it begin to understand the mean- 
ing of this surprise. Its teachers, too, help it to interpret the 
facts. So the individual gradually acquires the habit of con- 
sidering the influence of his own conduct upon the interests of 
others. Where the necessary experience is wanting or in- 
adequate, we frequently find a trace of this primitive incon- 
siderateness. An only child is in danger of remaining 
inconsiderate, obstinate, and dogmatic for the rest of its 
life ; it does not receive the effective training in justice which 
brothers and sisters impart to each other. The danger is still 
greater in the case of persons who grow up as privileged favor- 
ites, persons who are always right. It is most difficult for 
the children of princes and great lords to learn the lesson of 
justice. Even after reaching the period of mature manhood, 
they often show that they have not had the experiences in 
their youth necessary to teach them justice in the elementary 
form : their encroachments upon the rights of others and 
their ill-humor have never been opposed, and so they fail to 
discover the existence of other wills beside their own. 

The real test of a just disposition is a person's attitude 
towards enemies and opponents, personal or collective. We 
are naturally inclined to look upon everything as right that 
is done against an enemy ; enemies may be despised, dis- 
graced, hated, and abused. And it is almost still more diffi- 
cult to be just to collective enemies, party opponents, etc., 
than to personal enemies. Injustice here assumes the form 
of fidelity to principle, loyalty to colleagues and friends ; the 
good cause demands that we subscribe to it unconditionally, 
and that we prove our sincerity by inflicting all possible in- 
jury upon our opponents. The attempt to judge without 
prejudice and to recognize the good in the other side is cried 
down by partisans as the beginning of apostasy. Hence 
partisanship is the deadly foe of justice ; we find this truth 



602 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

corroborated in every field, in political, ecclesiastical, and 
social, as well as in literary and scientific partisanship. For 
this reason men of finer sensibilities are not fitted for parti- 
sanship, and shun it like the plague. 

This is one side of justice ; he is a just man who limits his 
acts so that their consequences will not interfere with the 
interests of others ; he is unjust who does not do so, or 
consciously does the opposite. 

The other, active, side of justice is the non-sufferance, the 
warding off of injustice, first, of the injustice done to others, 
then also of that done to self. Language characterizes this 
phase of justice as the sense of justice. In a certain measure, 
it is the easier duty. To suffer wrong inflames us ; not only 
does the wrong which I myself suffer call forth anger and the 
impulse to revenge, but the wrong which is inflicted upon a 
third person also arouses in the disinterested spectator a vio- 
lent emotion, indignation, which may be defined as disinter- 
ested anger at the injustice suffered by another, and which 
impels us to take the part of the injured person, and to punish 
the evil-doer for the wrong. In the impulse of retaliation we 
have the instinctive basis of public punishment. In the latter 
the sympathy of the disinterested party for the victim as 
against the offender, is systematized and made effective. In 
punishment the community reacts against the attack made 
upon one of its members, and defeats it. 

2. The significance of justice for human conduct is shown 
by the effects of injustice. The immediate effect of injustice 
is that it disturbs or destroys the welfare of the person against 
whom it is done. There are also indirect and secondary 
effects. Injustice creates strife. The injured person seeks to 
re-establish his interests at the expense of his opponent, and 
to revenge himself for the injury suffered. The aggressor in 
turn defends himself, and so a state of war arises, which has 
the tendency to spread to all those who are related either to 
the victim or to the aggressor by ties of friendship or common 



\ 



JUSTICE 603 

interests. — Another effect inseparable from injustice is that it 
produces a feeling of insecurity, not only in the person who 
suffers it, but in all those who witness it. What has happened 
once may happen again, at any time ; what has happened to 
one may happen to all — this is the instinctive inference forced 
upon all by injustice and violence. Injustice therefore tends 
to destroy the state of peace and security, and to substitute for 
it the state of war and insecurity. 

This explains the perniciousness of injustice. A condition 
of insecurity paralyzes life and action, wherever it extends. 
Human conduct differs from that of animals, the conduct of 
civilized men from that of savages, in that it is connected and 
systematic ; the animal lives in the present, man reckons 
with the future. But arbitrary interferences on the part of 
others render all calculations of the future illusory. Injustice 
as a lawless element prevents all systematic activity and de- 
liberate planning. If it can break in upon us at any moment, 
it will be advisable to confine our actions to the present, and 
not to sacrifice certainty to uncertainty. Injustice, therefore, 
tends to undermine the foundations of truly human life. A 
state of war has the same effect : it is necessarily a state of 
insecurity for all those who actively or passively participate 
in it. It has the further effect of consuming and paralyzing 
the powers of the participants, and consequently to that 
extent, hinders them from solving the problems of individual 
and social life. 

Justice is, therefore, good because it has the tendency to 
establish and maintain a state of security, the precondition of 
systematized, *. e., human, activity, and peace, the precondition 
of social life. Injustice is bad, as a mode of conduct and 
habit of the will, because it tends to destroy these foundations 
of human welfare. 

3. We can now demonstrate the teleological necessity of 
positive right. Positive right has its place in the state. The 
state represents, first of all, the united power of a nation. By 



604 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

placing itself under the protection of might, the right becomes 
a power in the world. In law the state formulates the right 
as the expression of its will, and invests it with its power 
to overcome the resistance of individuals. The positive right 
may be defined as a system of rules by which the interests 
and functions of the individual members of the state are differ- 
entiated from each other, and the spheres thus limited are 
placed under the protection of the power of the state. The 
penal right defines the limits of the spheres from the negative 
side ; it determines which acts shall be regarded as encroach- 
ments or violations, and therefore punished. The private right 
determines them from the positive side ; it defines the spheres 
— in family-rights and property-rights — within which the 
individual may move and still enjoy the protection of the 
state. 

The object and effect of the positive right and the protection 
of the same by compulsion and punishment is the prevention 
of wrong, hence the establishment of a state of peace and 
security for all the members of the community. It is the 
business of the system of rights, on the one hand, to assist 
the individual in regulating his conduct with respect to others' 
spheres of action ; it saves him the trouble, or at least facil- 
itates the process, of making difficult and complicated com- 
putations as to what he may do without injuring the just 
rights of others. It likewise checks his inclination to do 
wrong, by threatening evil consequences, and so gives a cer- 
tain steadfastness to his conduct and hinders him from in- 
fringing upon the rights of others. On the other hand, it 
also protects him, within his restricted sphere, against 
encroachments on the part of others. The system of rights, 
therefore, brings a certain degree of objective justice or 
legality into the life and conduct of the members of the 
legal community, and maintains it. 

But why is compulsion exercised here while so many 
objectionable and pernicious modes of conduct, like intern- 



JUSTICE 605 

perance, dissipation, ingratitude, mendacity, do not occa- 
sion any interference on the part of the community with the 
individual ? This is due to the specific nature of injustice. 
The pernicious effects of injustice directly affect the com- 
munity and its conditions of life. Injustice, as has been 
pointed out, has the tendency to produce a state of war 
among the members of society. Internal war, however, is 
the specific disease which destroys communities ; it has the 
same effect, to use an old illustration, as the revolt of the 
members of an organic body against each other would have. 
A tribe or a people that suffers from this disease is, to that 
extent, less capable of life. Other things being equal, a 
second tribe or people is precisely so much superior to it 
in the struggle for existence as it is less exposed to internal 
friction, or as its arrangements for preserving internal peace 
are more perfect and effective. This is the teleological ne- 
cessity which has impelled every nation to develop a legal 
order and the technical means for administering the same, 
and which encourages it constantly to improve the system. 
All other offences and vices are dealt with by custom, educa- 
tion, spiritual ministration, and the personal insight of the 
individual. By opposing injustice a nation defeats attacks 
upon the conditions of its own existence. 

The history of positive right universally follows this plan. 
Every right is a form of protection against injustice, the 
destroyer of peace and social life, and as such adapted to the 
actual state, intelligence, and good will of the society pro- 
ducing it. Blood revenge was the primitive form of resisting 
encroachments ; the clan reacted against injury as a unit, 
by holding the clan of the aggressor, as a unit, responsible 
for the acts of every member thereof. This form of right 
gradually yielded to a higher form of tribal and national 
right. The family-feud, which grows out of blood revenge, 
was against the interests of the people, it weakened them 
against the external foe and disturbed peaceful intercourse 
within. Hence it was at first regulated by "fines" 



606 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

[Wehrgeld] — a system in which an officer of the law as 
the representative of the king, who is the guardian of order, 
co-operated — and at last self-help and personal revenge 
were entirely done away with. 

4. This also explains the right of the community to com- 
pel lawful behavior on the part of the individual by force 
and punishment. It has a right to compel and punish 
because it has a right to preserve itself. And this right is 
at the same time a duty, because self-preservation is the 
first and almost only duty of the community. 

The explanation of the penal right forms the subject of 
endless debate. 1 Here as everywhere in practical philosophy 
we have the two opposing views which we have termed the 
teleological and intuitional-formalistic. The latter attempts 
to justify punishment as the immediately necessary, ethical- 
logical consequence of the crime ; the former explains it by 
its effects upon human welfare. 

Here, too, Kant is responsible for the reaction against the 
teleological conception. " The penal law," he says," is a cate- 
gorical imperative." " Judicial punishment can never be in- 
flicted merely as a means of promoting another good for the 
criminal himself or for civil society, but must always be im- 
posed because he has broken a law ; " — and he cries " woe " 
upon all such as go through the serpentine windings of the 
eudaemonistic theory. 2 And Hegel adopts the same view, 
adding the usual statements concerning the superficiality 
and triviality of those who employ their " understanding " 
in these matters, which is inadequate, because the " con- 
cept" is what we are after. He deduces punishment as 
the logical abrogation of the violation of right: "The 
violation of right as right is, indeed, a positive, external 

1 [See in addition to the works already mentioned : Spinoza, Preface to Part 
IV. ; Bentham, chs. XIII.-XVII. ; Maine, Ancient Law, ch. II. ; Hoffding, 
XXXIX. ; Bowne, ch. X. ; Wundt, Part III., ch. III., 5 ; Nietzsche, Genealogie, 
70 ff. ; Rnnze , §§ 76 ff . ; Proal, Le crime et la peine ; Criminal Statistics in 
Oettingen, §§ 37, 38, 39, 57.— Tk.] 

2 Rechtslehre, § 49. 



JUSTICE 607 

affair, but it is naught in itself. The manifestation of its 
nullity is the annihilation of that violation, which likewise 
appears in external form. This brings out the reality of 
right; its form of necessity is mediated by the abrogation 
of its violation." Offering violence to the criminal will is 
" the annulling of the crime, which otherwise would main- 
tain its own validity, and the restoration of the right. " 2 

It is one of the strangest psychological riddles that the 
turbid profundity of such reflections should have been mis- 
taken by many of Hegel's contemporaries as the solution 
of the problem ; as though plays upon words and ambiguities, 
like nullity and abrogation, were thoughts ! For can we affect 
the past and make naught what has been done ? And if ab- 
rogation and negation cannot mean this, what do they mean ? 
That even if a thing did happen, it ought not to have 
happened ? And are criminals being hung and beheaded, im- 
prisoned and deported, simply in order to bring this out? — 
But here, too, the intuitional-formalistic theory receives support 
from common-sense. The latter, too, will answer the ques- 
tion, Why is the criminal punished? by saying: Well, of 
course, because it is right, and because he deserves punish- 
ment ; what is there so remarkable in that ? So say also Kant 
and Hegel : There is nothing remarkable in this ; punishment 
is demanded by the categorical imperative ; punishment is the 
logically-necessary consequence of wrong ! 

It would be futile to attempt to dissuade philosophers who 
are in love with their formula from believing that it contains 
the answer to all the problems of the universe and of life. 
But it will perhaps be possible to convince healthy common- 
sense that this answer does not entirely settle the matter. 
So the criminal is punished because he deserves punishment ? 
Admirable, and undoubtedly true ! But would there be pun- 
ishment if it had absolutely no effect and could have none in 

1 Naturrecht, §§ 90 ff. [Translated in part by J. M. Sterrett, The Ethics of 

Hegel, 1893, pp. 94 ff. — Tr.] 



608 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

the very nature of things ? Would thieves be lodged in jails 
and penitentiaries if that did not prevent them from stealing, 
either during their imprisonment or afterwards, or at least, 
if no one else were thereby deterred from theft ? That is 
hardly probable ; society would scarcely undertake to build 
prisons and penitentiaries if the existence of such institu- 
tions had absolutely no influence upon the annual number of 
robberies and burglaries. The victim of the criminal might, 
perhaps, still desire punishment to be inflicted, provided he 
considered confinement in the penitentiary as an evil ; other- 
wise, he would ha^e no interest in the matter ; the mere 
"manifestation and abrogation of the wrong" would not 
relieve his anger. 

The " retrospective " theory of punishment, then, seems to 
be inadequate. Punishment is inflicted because a crime has 
been committed (quia peccatum est) ; very true, but this 
because is not really the ground, but only the occasion of the 
punishment. The ground is to be sought in the effect, and 
the effect is not in the past but in the future : punishment 
is an evil which is inflicted upon the criminal by the authori- 
ties of the state in order that crime may not be committed 
in the future (ne peccetur). People cover up a well because a 
child has fallen into it, and in order that it may not happen 
again ; they build dams because the river inundates the fields, 
and in order that it may not happen again. If it were not for 
the in order that, the because would not determine them to act 
in the manner indicated. If there were no future, there would 
be absolutely no effects and no acts ; although it may be con- 
ceded that a tendency to do afterwards what ought to have 
been done before, even though it can do no more good, occa- 
sionally expresses itself in attempts at action. When the 
maid has broken the dish, she puts the pieces together again, 
and says, This is the way it was ! 

It is encouraging to note that the science of criminal juris- 
prudence is beginning to abandon the purely formalistic con- 



JUSTICE 609 

ception of Speculative Philosophy, and is turning to the teleo- 
logical view. It seems to me that the influence of Hegel with 
his contempt for the "intelligible," i.e., the causal-teleological 
view, was particularly bad in this field. It led to a total 
neglect of the question concerning the effect of punishment ; 
science, it was held, had solely to determine the right. The 
main thing was to ascertain the number of years and days in 
jail or prison which ought to be imposed for each particular 
delict. No one ever inquired whether these punishments were 
suitable means for preventing crimes. The legislator fixed 
certain general penalties, the judge applied them to the 
particular cases, and this settled the matter, justice was 
satisfied, the crime expiated. The criminal was then turned 
over to the authorities whose business it was to execute the 
sentence. And from this quarter came the opposition to the 
theory. It could not escape the notice of sharpsighted and 
conscientious men that especially the short terms of imprison- 
ment — though they might satisfy " the idea of the right " 
and serve to " make manifest " the wrong — were by no 
means particularly fitted to hinder crime, nay, were wholly 
ineffective in many cases; that they did the very opposite. 
Short terms of imprisonment, without special physical priva- 
tions or inconveniences, hardly deter the habitual criminal, who 
has no social position to lose; nay, he frequently seeks tem- 
porary refuge in the penitentiary. For the accidental crimi- 
nal, on the other hand, who violates the law in consequence of 
poverty, opportunity, temptation, or ignorance of the law, the 
prison often becomes a school for crime. Here, in the com- 
pany of old and experienced criminals, he loses his reverence 
for custom and law, he forms acquaintances who afterwards 
cling to him and initiate him into all kinds of crimes; he 
loses his self-respect, his civil honor, and his ability to make 
an honest living. In this way his ability to resist crime is 
weakened on all sides ; he begins to develop into an habitual 
criminal 



610 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

The teleological theory, which was applied to the entire 
field of jurisprudence by Jhering in his work, Der Zweck im 
Hecht, 1 and particularly to the penal law by F. von Liszt in 
his Lehrbuch des Strafrechts, 2 calls attention to the causes 
of crime on the one hand, and to the efficacy of punishment 
on the other, and will, it is to be hoped, prove more success- 
ful in coping with crime. For we surely all agree that our 
system of criminal jurisprudence by no means satisfies all 
just demands. A system that enables thousands of profes- 
sional criminals to commit the same crimes over and over 
again, which, with the assistance of an army of police offi- 
cers, captures them each time, grants them long and tedious 
trials, convicting them after endless sessions and at great 
expense, and finally imprisons them for a few months or 
years, only to release them again at the expiration of their 
terms, for a few months, permitting them to take up their 
calling where they left it off, and to propagate their kind — 
such a system, I say, can hardly be designated as a satisfac- 
tory institution for the protection of society against crime. 3 
And it is equally hard to understand the calmness with 
which our criminal authorities contemplate the fact that four 
hundred thousand persons are sentenced to prison in Prussia 
annually ; that is, that one out of every seventy has been in 
prison I How many of the population are not punished ? 

1 The Teleology of Law. 

2 Handbook of Criminal Law, 3d edition, 1888. 

3 In the Feuilleton of a Berlin paper I once read the following : " A comical 
scene may frequently be witnessed in the streets during these Christmas holidays. 
The pickpocket is now diligently engaged in shadowing his victims, who gather 
around the show-windows of the stores. But we may regularly notice, not far 
from him, a man of the law, who keeps a sharp watch upon him, and catches him 
by the collar as soon as he puts his hands into people's pockets." The writer 
evidently intended to remind the citizen of Berlin how well his pocket was being 
guarded : behind every pickpocket stands the detective, who is simply watching 
his chance ! — Would the burgomaster or the aldermen of a mediaeval town have 
regarded this scene as so comical ? Would they not rather have declared with 
an angry oath: Such a system of having one thousand policemen watch one 
thousand professional thieves seems to be the most flagrant madness, even 
though there is method in it ! 



JUSTICE 611 

Half of those who are old enough to serve time ? And what 
influence have these conditions upon the sentiments of the 
masses in reference to their relation to the state ? 

Punishment is efficacious in many ways: it may reform 
the criminal by bringing him to his senses and reconciling 
him with the injured person and society ; it acts as a deter- 
rent, — in extreme cases by eliminating the criminal, that 
is, by killing or deporting him ; it also deters all others who 
may show an inclination to similar crimes, for offences com- 
mitted with impunity invite imitation, and everybody would 
feel that he had been cheated if he did not follow suit. All 
this is perfectly self-evident. It would be awkward, of 
course, to regard these things as separate, independent ends 
of punishment ; the purpose of punishment is one : to pre- 
serve peace and security, the condition of human life. The 
reform of the convict by education is not included in the 
purpose of punishment as such. It can easily be combined 
with the execution of a certain kind of punishment, namely, 
with incarceration; it is not, however, one of the real 
effects of punishment, but one of the effects of benevolence 
connected with it. The care of discharged criminals be- 
longs in the same category. 

Capital punishment is a subject of especial controversy. 
Some thinkers, following Beccaria's 1 example, have denied 
to the state the right to deprive any one of the right to life, 
because it cannot be assumed that any one would have con- 
sented, upon making the state contract, to be deprived of that 
right. And Schleiermacher holds that society should not 
inflict upon the individual any punishment that he would not 
inflict upon himself. 2 Kant rejects Beccaria's argument as 
sophistry and as a perversion of justice ; he says it springs 
from the sympathetic sentimentalism of an affected hu« 

1 [De delitti e dette pene, 1764. — Te.] 

2 [ Christliche Sittenlehre, p. 248. Victor Hugo is a violent opponent of capital 
punishment. See his Le dernier jour d'un condamne'. — Tr.] 



612 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

manisrn. 1 Indeed, we might ask with Justus Moeser whethei 
the state has any right to permit the professional murderer 
to live, first, in view of the relatives of the victim, whom the 
state has deprived of the possibility of revenge; secondly, in 
view of those who are compelled to provide for the main- 
tenance of the prisoner ; thirdly, in view of the future pos- 
sible victims of his criminal impulse. Let us suppose that 
a man makes a regular business of abducting, robbing, and 
murdering servant girls in search of employment : there can 
be no doubt that the people's sense of justice will be sat- 
isfied with nothing less than the death of such a monster ; 
they would simply regard it as an absurd outrage to keep 
and to support him for life at public expense. I confess, 
the fact that the Liberal party regards the abolition of capital 
punishment as one of its chief political aims, has always 
seemed to me to prove how little it understands the real 
sentiments of our people. And I further confess that I do 
not deem it impossible that the future will again make a 
more extended use of the process of extermination. That 
modern nations, which have for so many centuries relent- 
lessly exterminated worthless individuals, have for a few 
generations succeeded in discarding these methods does not 
at all prove that such a thing is permanently possible. 
There can hardly be a doubt that the fear of crime, which 
was formerly kept alive in the popular consciousness by so 
many death-sentences, is not so great to-day as it was one 
hundred years ago. 

I also call attention to the fact that compulsion is not con- 
fined to the criminal law. We find it in civil law as well; 
especially where the state compels the discharge of obliga- 
tions based upon contract. Here, too, the reason for coer- 
cion is apparently a teleological one. Two persons make a 
contract calling for a particular service or a specific payment. 
The obligation is not met. Why does the law compel the 

1 [Rechtslehre, Hartenstein'a edition, 149 ff.j 



JUSTICE 613 

individual to keep his contract ? Why does it not say : That 
is a bargain which does not concern me ; why were you so 
reckless as to trust that man or to lend him money ? — Evi- 
dently, because it is not immaterial to the state; because it 
has a very essential interest, not in this particular case as 
such, it is true, but in the keeping of contracts in general. 
Without a guarantee that contracts will be kept, there could 
be no intercourse except in the form of exchange or cash 
barter, and no personal service except in the form of slavery. 
If, then, higher civilization is made possible only by a de- 
veloped system of intercourse, the perfection of legal forms 
and legal protection becomes a teleological necessity for 
intercourse. 

5. From this standpoint we can also understand the duty 
of the individual to co-operate in supporting the positive 
right and in battling against injustice. He is in duty bound 
to resist breaches of the law, even when they do not directly 
affect him. This duty is recognized by the state : I am com- 
pelled to resist attacks upon the right by serving as a wit- 
ness, juror, soldier, or official. But the individual is also 
morally bound to protect against injustice the injured right 
in general, even when it is not protected by the law. It is 
the virtue of the chivalrous man to defeat by personal inter- 
vention, or to call to account before the courts, every possible 
form of injustice that interferes with the right, especially 
the rights of the defenceless, either by violence, strategy, 
or temptation. We must, of course, exercise due care in 
this regard : for injustice and self -caused misery are fond of 
giving themselves the air of injured innoceuce. 

The absence of this virtue forms one of the most painful 
omissions in the morality of the New Testament. To work 
and suffer for others it recognizes as a virtue, but of the 
battle against injustice and violence for the protection of 
others it says almost nothing. What ought the Samaritan 
to have done had he reached the spot a quarter of an hour 



614 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

earlier and had found the robbers still at work, and had 
he seen only one way of rescuing their victim, that is, by 
attacking and killing them ? I confess, I do not know how 
to answer this question in the spirit of the Gospel. Moses, 
who strangled the Egyptian, gave us an unambiguous answer 
by his example ; does the New Testament give us the same 
answer? It does not seem so: Peter's experience with the 
servant Malchus seems to point to a different solution ; the 
moral to be drawn from it is evidently this, Resist ye not 
evil, neither that which is done to yourselves, nor that 
which is done to others. So, too, the old Christian com- 
munities present us with many examples of heroic suffer- 
ing, but not with examples of chivalrous battles against the 
oppressors and persecutors of innocence. Such a type of 
conduct was first developed by mediaeval Christianity. 

No one in our times will doubt that it is a duty to resist 
and battle against the injustice done to others. But how 
about the wrong inflicted upon myself? Is it a duty to offer 
resistance to this also, and even to oppose it with force, should 
occasion demand ? Or is the defence of one's own rights 
merely a matter of inclination, and not a commandment of 
justice ? The ethics of the Gospel favors the latter view ; it 
nowhere insists that we assert our own rights, while it often 
admonishes us not to judge, not to go to law, not to take re- 
venge, but to forgive transgressions and to love our enemies. 

There has perhaps never been a time when a community 
calling itself Christian strictly obeyed such a command. It 
is to be assumed that Christians have always — at least in 
extreme cases —though perhaps with some misgivings, ap- 
pealed to the law for protection and for the punishment of 
evil. We know that Paul appealed to his Roman citizenship 
for protection against violence and injustice. Now, espe- 
cially, that Christian states have been established, the evan- 
gelical injunction, "Love and forgive your enemy," does not 
hinder any one from going to law and causing punishment 



JUSTICE 615 

to be inflicted by due legal process. Is this merely a human 
weakness, which cannot resist one of the strongest impulses, 
the love of revenge, or does the command not hold, at least 
not without limitation ? 

There is no doubt in my mind that the latter is the case. 
If the public measures which are taken to hinder injustice 
are necessary for the establishment of order and security, 
and hence make for welfare, then it will be the duty of the 
individual to do all in his power to support them and to 
carry them out. Whoever permits his rights to be inter- 
fered with without making legal resistance, to that extent 
weakens the barriers erected against injustice. Every act of 
injustice is directed not only against me, but against the 
entire legal system, and, if allowed to go unpunished, dimin- 
ishes the latter's power of resistance. Good-natured or 
cowardly compliance invites repetition and imitation; it 
also tempts those to do wrong who would otherwise be de- 
terred by fear ; and thereby endangers the rights of others. 
A legal community resembles a dike-union. Duty towards 
the community demands that even the smallest break in the 
dike be taken notice of and stopped up. So, too, it is the 
duty of every member to see to it that no breaches are 
made in that part of the universal defence against the tur- 
bulent floods of injustice which is placed under his charge, 
that is, in his own rights. 

R. von Jhering ably develops this view in his thoughtful 
little treatise: Der Kampf urns Recht. 1 The right, he says, 
is acquired and kept alive by struggle. To flee in this battle 
is to abandon one's moral dignity as a legal subject, and 
at the same time to injure one's fellow soldiers by making 
a breach in the ranks for the enemy to enter. The strength 
of the public legal system depends upon each individual's 
willingness to insist upon his rights as representing the 
universal right, and upon the universal right as represent- 

1 [The Struggle for the Right.') 



616 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

ing his own rights, and, if need be, to fight for them. An 
English traveller, says Jhering, remains in a town for days 
and days to resist the exorbitant demands of a hotel-keeper 
or coachman, and spends ten times the sum involved in the 
dispute, in order, so it appears, to defend the rights of old 
England. "The people laugh at him, and do not know what 
it all means — • it would be better for them if they understood 
him. For in the few guldens for which the man is here 
fighting, there is, indeed, a piece of old England; at home 
in his own country everybody understands him, and hence 
takes good care not to overcharge him. Imagine an Austrian 
of the same social rank and wealth in a similar situation, 
how would he act ? If I may trust my own experiences, not 
ten out of one hundred would follow the example of the 
Englishman. They would dread the inconvenience arising 
from the trouble, the notoriety, the danger of being misun- 
derstood, which an Englishman in England need not fear 
and which he calmly accepts abroad, — in short, they would 
pay. But there is more in the gulden which the Englishman 
refuses to pay, and which the Austrian pays, than we are 
apt to believe; there is a piece of England in it, and a 
piece of Austria, and it represents centuries of their re- 
spective political evolution and social life." * 

Yery true; the energy with which each individual in a 
nation resists wrong, and the amount of wrong committed, 
stand exactly in inverse proportion to each other. In free 
nations this active side of justice, the sense of right, de- 
velops. In nations that are not free, the individual expects 
leniency, privileges, favors, mercy; here mendicancy, the 
tipping-system, bribery, and corruption thrive. 

6. The jurist properly emphasizes the duty to respect and 
protect others' as well as our own rights by lawful means, 
and even by violent means if necessary. The moralist, on 
the other hand, will insist, with equal propriety, that this 

1 §44. 



JUSTICE 617 

duty is not absolute, that the duty to respect and protect the 
right must be limited and supplemented by the demands 
of equity and magnanimity. 

Equity demands that we voluntarily resign claims and acts 
to which we have an undoubted formal right, so that our own 
interests may not be advanced at relatively greater damage to 
those of others. This is a demand, not of the law, but of 
morality, which, it must not be forgotten, is rooted in the 
very nature of justice: my regard for others and their inter- 
ests, which are just as important as my own, will hinder 
me from exacting from others all that the law allows. To 
insist rigorously on one's rights would be violating the very 
spirit of justice, for justice really demands that the different 
interests be fairly apportioned, but it cannot, on account of 
its mechanical nature, wholly adapt itself to the individual 
cases, and hence can realize its end only imperfectly. It 
appeals to the fair-mindedness of the interested parties for 
help, and now and then expressly authorizes the judge to 
make revisions in the interests of equity. 

Magnanimity is the virtue which does not requite personal 
injuries, but overlooks them, and does not embrace the 
opportunity for revenge, even though it present itself. 
Christianity goes so far as to demand love of enemies : Love 
him who sins against you, as a brother, and not only bear 
him no grudge, but forgive him with all your heart, and 
return good for evil. 

The command of the Gospel seems difficult and almost 
unnatural. The natural man deems it right and proper to 
love his friends and to hate his enemies. Would it not be 
unjust to the former if we should treat the latter in the same 
way ? What would there be left for my friends if I were to 
treat my enemies with pure benevolence and beneficence ? 
And shall I endure every injury, every attack against myself 
and my interests without exception, and do nothing but good 
in return ? Would that not be encouraging and provoking 



618 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

wickedness ? Has not nature herself taught all living crea- 
tures to resist attacks so that they may defend themselves 
and have peace ? Certainly, we must admit it ; and resist- 
ance and resentment, both private and public, are justifiable 
in their proper place. But they are not in every case the 
proper means of establishing and ensuring peace, and hence 
the command, Resist every infraction of the law by all law- 
ful means, cannot have absolute validity. A neighbor in- 
sults me with a frivolous remark, or treats me unkindly. 
Shall I summon him before court ? Shall I obtain satisfac- 
tion by private means ? The opportunity will surely pre- 
sent itself, owing to the closeness of our relations. What 
would be the effect ? Would he be more careful in future ? 
Perhaps. But another effect would surely follow: my 
retaliation would leave a sting in him; he would consider 
himself the affronted party : For such a trifle, on account of 
a mere word ! he would say. He would make up his mind 
to pay me back at the next opportunity, and to show me at 
the same time that he was not afraid of me. The moment 
arrives when he can play me a trick or do me a favor, protect 
me against damage. He makes use of his chance by scorn- 
fully reminding me of my former conduct. And now it is 
my turn again. I simply defended my good rights before ; his 
present treatment of me is an intentional injury: this I shall 
not forget. And so we move our revenge back and forth, 
intensifying it as we go, making our enmity deeper each 
time. Here the " struggle for the right " did not bring 
peace, as it should have done, but the bitterest, most per- 
nicious war, sapping the strength of both of us. How differ- 
ent it would have been, had the first act of revenge been 
omitted, had the first act of injustice been met with com- 
plete, free forgiveness ! Perhaps the insulting remark, 
which inaugurated the war of revenge, might have formed 
the starting-point of a lasting friendship. An opportunity 
was afforded for requiting the wrong ; I did not embrace it, 



JUSTICE 619 

but was sincere and kind, polite and obliging. He was sur- 
prised and perplexed; he felt as though 1 were heaping 
coals of fire upon his head, and resolved to wipe out the 
remembrance of that first occurrence. The first act of injury 
and forgiveness became the basis for a firm friendship be- 
tween us; my forgiveness and his acceptance of the same 
are guarantees of our mutual good will. Thus, to speak 
with the Apostle, evil has been overcome with good. There is 
no grander and more beautiful art than this; Jesus does 
not forget it in the beatitudes : Blessed are the peacemakers. 

Spinoza furnishes us with the psychological formula for 
it: "Hatred is increased by hatred, and can, on the other 
hand, be destroyed by love. Hatred which is completely 
vanquished by love passes into love; and love is then 
greater than if hatred had not preceded it. " 5 Hence " the 
wise man (qui ex ductu rationis vivit) endeavors, so far as 
he can, to render back love or kindness for other men's 
hatred, anger, and contempt." And with a warmth not 
usual to him the mathematical judge of human affairs adds : 
" He who chooses to avenge wrongs with hatred is assuredly 
wretched. But he who strives to conquer hatred with love, 
fights his battle in joy and confidence ; he withstands many 
as easily as one, and has very little need of fortune's aid. 
Those whom he vanquishes yield joyfully, not through fail- 
ure, but through increase of their powers. " 2 

If, then, both modes of conduct are justifiable, the ques- 
tion arises: How are we to limit the command of forgiveness 
and the command of retaliation ? When is the former, when 
the latter, in place ? It will not be hard to give a general 
answer: That form of conduct is always appropriate and duti- 
ful which in each case tends to realize the ultimate end, the 
avoidance of further injustice and lasting peace. If to forget 
and to forgive were the means of hindering theft and of 
preserving the institution of property, we should undoubt- 

1 Ethics, III., 43, 44. 2 Ethics, IV., 46. 



620 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

edly make exclusive use of this means. If retaliation and 
punishment were the sole and surest means of making him 
peaceful and kind who treats us impolitely, unkindly, and 
uncivilly, we should also know what to do. The trouble is, 
different cases require different treatment, and it will often 
be impossible to determine with certainty what is the most 
effective, and, hence, most appropriate, method of procedure 
in a particular instance. It certainly cannot be indicated by 
moral philosophy in universal propositions or categorical 
imperatives. Only experienced moral tact, which takes into 
account all the concrete circumstances, can discover the 
proper course to pursue in each particular case, which, how- 
ever, does not exclude the possibility of error. Moral phi- 
losophy can perhaps merely indicate the general points of 
view from which each case must be considered. We may 
mention the following : — 

(1) Forgiveness is possible when the offence is directed 
against a particular person ; punishment is necessary when 
the offence is directed not so much against a particular per- 
son as against custom and law in general. Theft, for ex- 
ample, is not a crime against the particular person as such, 
but against the owner as such, hence, against the institution 
of property. To overlook it is therefore less possible than to 
overlook an insult which is aimed solely at myself, and does 
not show a general tendency to such offences. The case is 
different when it comes to insulting an official in the exercise 
of his duties, — for which reason retaliation is more in place 
here. The criminal law takes account of these facts in so far 
as it distinguishes between delicts which are prosecuted ex 
officio and such as are prosecuted solely upon complaint. 

(2) It is a fact that we are apt to be reconciled and in- 
clined to forgiveness by remorse. And justly so. Remorse is 
a sign that the offence was not the expression of the offender's 
permanent will, that it was the result of error, accident, 
haste, or carelessness. If no attention is paid to his re* 



JUSTICE 621 

morse, if we react by punishing him or taking revenge, a 
revulsion of feeling is likely to ensue. His remorse vanishes, 
he has expiated his wrong, nay, he is apt to feel that he has 
more than expiated it, and he now has, instead of a debt to 
pay, a claim which he will take up as soon as opportunity 
offers. Punishment may, of course, be appropriate even in 
cases of genuine remorse, as, for example, in education; the 
punishment may prove the remorse, and genuine remorse may 
even demand punishment as an expiation, in order, however, 
at the same time to obtain forgiveness thereby. And if the 
remorse is not deep, punishment may be necessary to 
strengthen the memory of the will : punishment is then a 
reminder, an admonition. — When, however, remorse is lack- 
ing, when a conscious and stubborn will, when impudent 
malice, commits the wrong and boasts of it and rejoices 
in its iniquity, punishment is necessary to terrify and to 
break the wicked will ; perhaps the nature of the will 
may even be transformed in this way, for it is an undoubted 
fact that there have been genuine conversions among crim- 
inals sentenced to death. — The criminal authorities too, 
endeavor to take these things into account, but they cannot, 
in the very nature of things, easily adjust themselves to the 
particular circumstances, and to this is due the inadequacy of 
public punishment as compared with that employed in educa- 
tion. It necessarily somewhat resembles the mechanical 
process of nature, which does not consider the intention, but 
merely the objective facts. Then, again, the judge, as a rule, 
has no means of testing the genuineness of remorse. If this 
factor were taken into consideration, the criminals would, of 
course, all simulate remorse* as universally happens in pen- 
itentiaries and other places where a remorseful demeanor is 
regarded as a sign of good behavior. Nevertheless, the judge 
is induced by a remorseful confession to assume extenuating 
circumstances. 

(3) The third item is the following : Wherever persons live 



622 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

together in permanent relations, as husband and wife, brother 
and sister, inmates of the same house, relatives, neighbors, 
etc,, the command of Jesus, not to forgive your brother 
seven times, but seventy times seven, will be especially in 
place. Slight collisions are always inevitable where persons 
live close together. Whoever insists upon his rights in every 
instance, makes life intolerable for himself and his surround- 
ings. A certain measure of toleration is an absolute precon- 
dition of peaceful intercourse. " Be not righteous overmuch," 
the word of the Preacher, applies here ; that is, be careful 
to give everyone his just dues, but do not always rigorously 
insist upon your own rights. And also remember the ninth 
commandment and the interpretation put upon it : Speak well 
of thy neighbor and turn all things to good ! To good ! This 
is excellent advice. Your brother is close and rather fond of 
money, — say he is economical and a good manager ; he has 
a tendency to express his views somewhat strongly and with- 
out regard for the feelings of others, — say he is sincere and 
loves the truth ; he is fonder of enjoyment and social pleasures 
than you deem necessary, — say he is cheerful and light- 
hearted. The man who cannot see the good in things, who 
always looks at them from the worst side, who is constantly 
finding fault, cannot live with men, and will do well to avoid 
contact with them as much as possible. Schopenhauer un- 
questionably acted wisely when he withdrew from the world 
and absolutely refused to enter into close personal relations 
with his fellows, such as, marriage, friendship, society. In 
his exclusiveness he enjoyed a tolerable peace, which other- 
wise would have been impossible. Dogmatic, distrustful, and 
revengeful as he was, he would have embittered his own life 
and that of others had he mingled with the world. 

Where, however, no permanent relations exist, where men 
come in contact with each other occasionally only, as is the 
case in business, it will be much less objectionable for one to 
insist upon his rights. To overlook acts of injustice and to 



JUSTICE 623 

let them go unpunished would be apt to be misunderstood. 
It might he regarded as a sign of ignorance or indolence, fear 
or cowardice, and would invite repetition, perhaps on a larger 
scale. It is well known that persons who are ashamed of 
insisting on their rights, especially in little things, encourage 
that tendency to fraud which is found wherever great lords 
and rich people are in the habit of squandering their money. 
The same may happen in social intercourse. It is at times 
as meritorious sharply to call to account inquisitive impu- 
dence, insolent arrogance which boasts of despising morals, as 
it is to bring thieves and scoundrels to justice. 

But we cannot regard it as a universally binding duty to 
bring such offences to justice in every case. It is evidently 
not only right but even necessary for one to consider his 
own interests in such instances. The behavior of the English- 
man mentioned above may be the result of a praiseworthy 
habit, but this does not make it rational and dutiful in each 
particular case. A man goes to Russia ; he is cheated by a 
high or a low official. Is it his duty to prosecute the offender, 
at the risk of being compelled to carry on a hopeless and 
expensive law-suit, and of finally being sent to Siberia with- 
out any trial whatever ? It seems to me he might well con- 
tend that it was not his business to improve the morals of 
the Russian officials, at least not at such a cost. The case 
may be different for a Russian. And so it can not be my 
duty to avenge every insult to which I am subjected. A street 
Arab makes faces at me, or throws mud at me ; surely I may 
pass along without turning around, and say with Epictetus, 
That is none of my business. A reviewer says all sorts of 
evil things against me, all of them being lies ; it is surely 
my privilege to decide whether I shall call him to account or 
shall console myself with Solomon's wise saying: Noli re- 
spondere imprudenti ad imprudentiam ejus, ne similis illi 
fias. For, indeed, the only possible answer which one can 
give is often simply to pay no attention to the matter. At 



624 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

times, of course, it may be highly meritorious to inflict ex- 
emplary punishment upon a literary highwayman, that is, in 
so far as this will tend to protect other wayfarers, and help 
to develop a public conscience along these lines. 

7. The Principle of Rights. Right in the subjective sense 
was characterized above as that sphere of interests which 
a person can justly command others to respect ; wrong, as 
an offensive encroachment upon this field. The question now 
arises : According to what principle is the line to be drawn 
which separates the spheres of the different members of a 
legal community from each other ? If the actions of in- 
dividuals were perfectly independent and did not conflict 
with each other, if their interests were absolutely isolated 
from each other, it would be the function of the right simply 
to protect this relation against arbitrariness and violence. 
But the case is different. The actions of each individual 
cross those of others, their spheres of interests intersect. We 
might say, with Hobbes : Originally, in a fictitious natural 
state, every man had and insisted on his right to have every- 
thing and to do anything he liked. Hence arose a collision 
of interests and actions, which led to " the condition of war 
of every one against every one." The system of rights pre- 
vents such a state ; it limits the activity or the liberty of each 
individual to a particular sphere, and at the same time de- 
fends him in this against the encroachments of others. Or, 
with Hobbes : The legal order consists in each individual's 
resigning his right to everything (Jus in omnia), and receiv- 
ing in return a limited and protected sphere. According to 
what principle shall the lines be drawn between the conflict- 
ing rights and interests ? 

The principle of equality seems to suggest itself as the most 
immediate and natural principle : Each man shall count for 
one ; the interests of each man are as important as those of 
every other one. This is the principle with which the advo- 
cates of natural rights antagonized the positive and historical 



JUSTICE 625 

system of law prevailing in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries. Starting from the hypothesis of the natural equality 
of individuals, they demanded equal rights for all. The con- 
clusion would be correct if the premises were true. Equality 
of natural capacities and powers demands equality of rights 
in perfecting and exercising them, as well as equal rights to 
the means of their realization. 

Positive law has, however, never acknowledged this prin- 
ciple of the absolute equality of all individuals ; and even the 
upholders of natural rights have always accepted certain 
restrictions as self-evident. There never has been equality of 
rights between adults and children, and it has never been de- 
manded. Children, it is true, are recognized as having rights, 
e. g., property-rights, but they are hindered from exercising 
them, and so, too, their personal freedom is subjected to the 
most decided limitations. The positive law universally shows 
the same differences between the rights of the sexes : women 
are restricted in the exercise of certain rights, at least married 
women, while they are almost entirely devoid of other rights, 
like public rights. It is true, some of the most modern 
advocates of natural rights demand the abolition of the legal 
inequalities between the sexes : equal rights in public and 
private law are claimed for women. And we may undoubt- 
edly say that our previous development has been tending 
towards equalization. Yet the majority of persons to-day, 
women as well as men, do not regard it as probable or desir- 
able that the rights of men and women be made absolutely 
equal. — Why not ? Is the vis inertice of institutions the only 
reason ? Hardly. Nay, the inequality of rights corresponds 
to an inequality of natural powers and natural spheres of action, 
and so long as this exists, the inequality of rights seems to be 
natural and necessary. To the military and political functions 
of the man — and here we are not to think chiefly of speech- 
making and voting — correspond certain political rights; to 
his economic position corresponds his right to be the exter- 



626 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

nal economic representative of the household. Woman's most 
important function, on the other hand, still is — however 
great the changes of these latter days may have been — the 
management of the home, and it will continue to be so, as 
long as the life-conditions of man himself remain essentially 
what they are. The rights of woman are determined by this 
relation : it is her privilege to rule the home, a right which 
is vouchsafed her not only by custom, but by law. 

Beside the legal differences based on age and sex, the his- 
torical legal systems always show other differences which 
rest upon class distinctions. Freemen and slaves or serfs, 
nobles and citizens, property holders and the propertyless 
always had different rights. This now was the point against 
which the upholders of natural rights directed their real 
attacks, and here they were essentially successful in enforc- 
ing their claim of equal rights. Ever since the great revolu- 
tion, on the eve of the nineteenth century, which affected all 
relations of right, there have been no real class rights in the 
European states ; these have entirely disappeared from private 
law, and are being gradually eliminated from public law ; a 
few remnants, e. #., in the form of a property qualification 
for voters or of privileges conceded to certain classes with 
regard to certain offices, are all that is left of the old system. 
— Why has the equality of rights prevailed here ? Surely 
because the differences in capacity and the corresponding 
differences of function and duty have gradually disappeared : 
the classes themselves have been gradually dissolved and 
with them the legal class-distinctions. Natural differences 
still exist between men, differences in mental and moral 
endowment and education, differences in inclination and skill, 
but they are no longer incorporated in classes, as was largely 
the case in former times. 

This, then, would be the principle which seems, on the 
whole, to have governed the development of positive right: 
the spheres of rights of the different members of the legal 



justicp: 627 

community are staked off according to the spheres of action 
corresponding to their natures and powers. Equality of 
rights extends as far as there is general natural equality ; 
corresponding to the great and essential differences inherent 
in the nature of things, we have differences in rights. 

Perhaps the upholders of the theory of natural rights can 
also adopt this principle. The most desirable thing would 
be for each individual to exercise, with absolute freedom 
and an unlimited control of all the means, all the functions 
of life which lead to and are included in the perfection of 
his natural capacities. This ideal of individual perfection 
would at the same time be the ideal fulfilment of duty towards 
the community : the richer and more varied the individual 
life, the richer would be the collective life. But since such 
absolute freedom and such unlimited rights are impossible 
where many live together, and since it becomes necessary 
to limit the liberty of each individual conformably with the 
freedom of all the rest, such restrictions must be made for 
the general good that the greatest possible amount of power 
and action may be realized in the community. This will 
be the case when the spheres of right are marked out 
according to the powers and capacities of the individuals. 
And such an arrangement could not, as it seems, be opposed 
from the standpoint of the individual ; the apportionment 
would be equitable. Or, if we consider the functions of the in- 
dividuals from the standpoint of the community, as duties, we 
can say that rights are to be apportioned according to duties. 

8. Incongruity between Law and Morals. 1 If the fullest and 
freest development and exercise of human powers and cap- 
acities is the highest good of human life, the legal order may, 
according to the above, be defined as a mechanism in the 
service of the good, whose function it is to harmonize many 
individual forces, with the least expenditure of energy, or to 
balance many partially crossing spheres of interest, with the 

1 [See also Hoffuing, XXXVII. — Tr.] 



628 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

least injury to those interests. The more perfectly a posi- 
tive legal order accomplishes this result, the more closely it 
realizes the purpose of the law, or what ethics demands and 
expects of the law. 

But the legal system can never absolutely realize this end. 
It lies in the nature of a mechanism to act mechanically, that 
is, according to general laws, and not according to the re- 
quirements of a particular case. The legal system acts in 
the same way : individual cases are decided according to 
general rules. We may conceive of a system deciding indi- 
vidual cases only ; we may conceive of a legal community 
which, either as a collective body, or through some organs 
or other, without binding itself or its judicial organs in any 
way, finds and determines the right from case to case, by 
free deliberation. There is in reality no such law ; every- 
where the law has the form of universal rules ; the right of 
the individual case is ascertained by subsuming it under one 
of these rules. The reason for this is obvious : only when 
there are general rules or laws, can the individual know and 
do the right with certainty and ease, and only in this way, 
too, can the law be protected against the arbitrariness of 
those administering it. If the right were ascertained from 
particular decisions only, then the individual who is in doubt 
about the limits of his own rights and those of others, would 
have to judge according to analogous cases — an uncertain 
method — while the subjective notions and inclinations of 
the judge would furnish boundless opportunities for error and 
partiality. The safety of the law depends upon its uni- 
formity. The legal order here resembles the natural order •, 
a nature without uniformity, in which all events occurred 
without rule, say according to absolute caprice, would be 
unknowable, and practical adaptation to its workings would 
be impossible. The uniformity of the process of nature is 
teleologically necessary for us as acting and knowing beings ; 
and the uniformity of law is necessary for the same reason. 



JUSTICE 629 

But this very uniformity of nature is fatal to our purposes 
in particular instances. All our movements presuppose 
that there are no exceptions to the law of gravitation, and 
their certainty depends upon the fact that our body univer- 
sally obeys it, like everything else. At times, however, it 
causes injury and death. Precisely the same may be said of 
the legal order: as a rule it tends to preserve and produce 
what is by nature right, but cases occur in which, owing to 
its necessary mechanical operation, the moral law is violated 
and broken by the positive law. The particular cases 
exhibit countless individual differences, while the law it- 
self is general, conceptual, schematic. The transition from 
childhood to maturity is, as a matter of fact, a continuous 
process of development, which differs for different individ- 
uals. The law, however, determines in a rigid formula, that 
a person is not of age until he is twenty-one years old. Even 
if on the day before he reaches his majority the guardians, 
against the will of the ward, take the most serious and 
ruinous measures affecting his rights, these will have legal 
force and will be upheld by the courts. The law protects 
contracts which were made in legitimate business, without 
regard to whether their provisions still conform to justice 
or not. Owing to unforeseen circumstances, things may so 
have changed as to cause the ruin of one of the contracting 
parties should the contract now be carried out, perhaps with- 
out substantially benefiting the other party. The law is not 
concerned about that. It pitilessly orders the eviction of 
a tenant who has unsuspectingly signed a ruinous con- 
tract, or the eviction of a debtor who has been robbed of his 
patrimony by a usurer who has remained within the pale 
of the law. It proceeds on the assumption that everybody 
always acts with a complete knowledge of the law and with 
a full understanding of his interests, an indispensable hypoth- 
esis which, however, as we all know, is false. 

The same is true of criminal law. It embraces under 



630 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

the same formula two acts which are, subjectively or morally 
considered, infinitely different from each other. Murder is 
the intentional killing of a man with malice aforethought, and 
is punishable with death. This definition includes the open 
and honest killing of a dishonorable and base scoundrel who 
has ruined the honor and happiness of my family through 
some dastardly act, without having rendered himself amenable 
to the criminal law^ as well as the most heinous deed of the 
poisoner and assassin. It is true, the criminal law attempts 
to make itself more elastic where the discrepancy is greatest, 
in order to adapt itself to the individual case : the discre- 
tionary powers of the judge in reference to the punishment to 
be inflicted, the consideration of extenuating circumstances, 
and the possibility of pardon are means to this end. But it is 
clear that these safeguards are not sufficient to counteract 
the errors caused by the mechanical operation of the law. 

Hence it happens that the positive law at times demands 
and does what contradicts the idea of justice in a particular 
case : summum jus summa injuria, — an inevitable conse- 
quence of the universality and uniformity of the law. 
Absolute adaptation of the law to the particular instance is 
possible only when the law appears in the form of a personal 
will, as is the case in home education. 

From this it follows that it may, under certain circum- 
stances, be morally possible for a person to do what the law 
does not allow. It is legally wrong for a man to dispose of a 
thing entrusted to his care, to the detriment of the owner ; 
such an act is punishable as a breach of faith. And yet 
it may be morally right. In case he can avert a great 
calamity from himself and others only by appropriating the 
thing entrusted to him, he may perhaps do so without com- 
punction. He may be guilty and punishable before the law, 
but before the tribunal of conscience and morality he is with- 
out blame. 

jit is worthy of note that the law itself, in a certain sense, 



JUSTICE 631 

recognizes the possibility of such cases, in that it exempts 
from punishment criminal acts " when the act was committed 
in consequence of a condition of necessity , for which the agent 
was not responsible, and which could not have been averted in 
any other way, and in order to save the body or life of the 
agent or one of his family from an imminent danger." 1 
Hence, when a man on the verge of starvation appropriates 
and consumes what belongs to another, or when he is in 
danger of freezing to death, and burns his neighbor's fence, 
he is exempt from punishment. In practically defeating 
itself the law evidently aims to avoid a conflict with morality 
or the idea of justice. And this is right, for it would simply 
destroy the faith in its own justice and necessity if it were to 
treat such cases according to the formula: Whoever ap- 
propriates anything belonging to another in violation of the 
law, will be punished with imprisonment for theft. 

Berner 2 considers the definition of the term condition of 
necessity (^NotstanoV) in the Imperial Criminal Code too narrow. 
He is right. If a man in serious danger of losing his entire for- 
tune slightly encroaches upon the rights of another, say by 
tearing down his neighbor's fence or by entering a dwelling or 
garden against the will of the owner, in order to save his house 
from fire or flood, it is evidently not possible to punish him for 
destruction of property or trespass. Or let us suppose a man 
compels an unwilling third party, by threats or force, to do 
or leave undone a trifling act in order to save a total stranger's 
life. It is not morally possible to condemn him for interfering 
with the personal liberty of another. Berner thinks it would 
be wise not to define the concept of necessity at all, but to 
leave the matter entirely to the discretion of the judge. In 
this respect, too, I agree with him. In order to have sufficient 
universality the definition could hardly read otherwise than 
as follows: In case it is possible to preserve my own or 

1 Reicksstra/gesetzbuch, Imperial Criminal Code of Germany, § 54, 

2 Strafrecht, § 57. 



632 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

others' vital interests only by doing less damage to the rights 
of others, a condition of necessity exists, which renders the 
infringement of others' rights exempt from punishment. It is 
obvious that no legislature could enact such a law. Its indefi- 
niteness would make all other laws uncertain : for how shall 
we define a vital interest ? What a field such a definition 
would open to the artifices of the lawyer ! If we leave the 
matter to the judge, without tying him to a definition or con- 
fusing him with a vague principle, we may, I believe, assume 
that he will hit upon the right with the tact peculiar to 
a healthy common-sense that has been sharpened by judicial 
experience. 

On the other hand, I cannot agree with Berner when he de- 
fends the notion of an actual JVotrecht (right of necessity), 
which the Imperial Criminal Code avoids. It may be morally 
justifiable to do what is contrary to the juridical right, but 
this cannot, as it seems to me, be defined juridically as right. 
That would mean a right to violate the right. The law can 
grant exemption from punishment only under certain circum- 
stances. Perhaps it would be better to speak of a Notunrecht 
(necessary unright or wrong) in analogy with the Notluge (lie 
of necessity), a wrong which, objectively considered, is un- 
doubtedly a wrong, but which cannot be judged and treated as a 
wrong under the existing objective and subjective conditions. 

Hence, the law itself recognizes in the notion of necessity 
and its influence upon the legal estimate of an act, that it 
may, owing to its logical-mechanical character, actually 
result in doing wrong, that is, decide contrary to the idea of 
justice. The idea of justice demands that equal interests be 
treated as equal, unequal interests" as unequal. As a rule, 
the law takes no account of the relative value of conflict- 
ing interests: it simply decides according to general formal 
rules, and is obliged to do so. But under totally abnormal 
circumstances it goes back even to the very source of the 
decision : wherever there is an absolute discrepancy between 



JUSTICE 633 

tne interests involved, the larger ones take precedence over 
the smaller ones, without regard to the formal law. Inasmuch 
as such corrections are, and can be, made only in extreme 
cases, it follows that the enforcement of the law must in 
many instances result in decisions which do not satisfy the 
idea of justice. 

9. This is one incongruity between law and morality : it 
may be morally possible to do what is legally impossible. 
More frequent and more important is the other case : it may 
be legally possible to do what is morally impossible ; a man 
may be guilty of the most serious violations of the moral duty 
of justice and yet remain strictly within the limits of the law. 

The positive law defines, we may say, only a part of the 
actual right. The mechanical nature of the legal order makes 
such a limitation necessary. A legal system attempting 
to enforce the complete realization of the idea of justice in the 
acts of men would, as may readily be seen, necessarily lead 
to a most intolerable state of insecurity and tyranny. Hence 
the legal order confines itself to enforcing that minimum of 
righteous acts without which human social life would not be 
possible. It thereby, of course, leaves a wide margin for 
injuries and the unjust assertion of individual interests at the 
expense of those of others. It does not enforce the payment 
of a just wage, but simply of the stipulated one ; it does not 
punish the delivery of goods inferior to those which the con- 
tract calls fo^, but only fraud ; it does not compel a man to 
give to every one the honor which is due him, but merely pun- 
ishes affronts. A general survey of all the spheres of rights 
will bring out this discrepancy between the demands of the 
law and the demands of morality. 

The legal spheres, as we noticed before, correspond to the 
great spheres of action or the circles of interests, for the pro- 
tection of which the legal order exists. The first and narrow- 
est sphere of interests is that which we may embrace under 
the heading, body and life. Encroachments upon this domain 



634 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

are made by homicide, isfi urement, assault and battery, and 
all attacks upon life and health. Protection against such 
crimes forms an important part of all law ; in the oldest 
legal systems it occupies the most conspicuous place. The 
laws of the ancient Germanic races, for example, consist 
largely in the determination of the amount of blood-money to 
be paid for every kind of injury against body and life. If we 
mean by encroachments upon this domain only physical 
assaults, then the law seems to leave no room for infractions. 
In fact, however, every hurt is directed against body and life, 
and so boundless opportunity is offered for unpunishable 
offences against others : such as causing them annoyance, 
arousing their anger or grief, exploiting and defrauding them. 
This is what the Gospel has to say in the matter : " Whoso- 
ever hateth his brother is a murderer." 

A second sphere of interests is bounded by the family, the 
expanded individual life. Encroachments upon this domain 
are made by adultery, abduction, substitution of children, 
seduction, and similar crimes. The more pronounced and 
tangible forms of such offences are reached by the criminal 
law; the more subtle forms of disturbing the peace of the 
home and the family, tale-bearing, intriguing, by which hus- 
bands are estranged from their wives and parents from their 
children, do not come within the reach of the law ; think of 
Othello's friend, Iago ! 

A third sphere of interests is defined by property, which 
includes the sum-total of external means of self-preservation 
and voluntary action. Encroachments upon this field are made 
by robbery, theft, blackmail, fraud, forgery, embezzlement, 
usury, and all such offences as come under the head of crimes 
against property. Here again the criminal law cannot reach 
the more subtle methods by which property is illegitimately 
acquired at others' expense. In spite of the efforts of the 
law to punish the offenders, the inventive genius of the 
lower and higher criminal classes always outwits the law. 



JUSTICE 635 

As a fourth sphere of interests may be mentioned honor, 
or ideal self-preservation. Encroachments upon this domain 
are made by insults, false reports, slander. In these cases, 
much more than in the preceding ones, the criminal law can 
reach only the more flagrant and careless, but not the more 
subtle and shrewd violations, which are not the less injurious. 
There are a thousand anonymous, indirect, undiscoverable 
ways of blasting a man's reputation for which a penal formula 
never can be found. 

The fifth sphere of interests is the free exercise of volition. 
Attacks upon the liberty of others are made by kidnapping, 
illegal arrest, compulsion, threats. Breaches of domestic peace 
may also be placed in this list. In the primitive legal codes 
protection was afforded against this class of offences by 
threatening with punishment every one who made a slave of a 
fellow, contrary to the law. Legal slavery and serfdom no 
longer exist among us. Yet even in our day forms of depend- 
ence are not wanting which closely resemble actual slavery. 
We may regard the laws which have been enacted for the pro- 
tection of labor during the last half century as a continuation 
of the legislation in defense of individual liberty against new 
forms of slavery. No one enjoys freedom in the full sense of 
the term whose life and strength are utilized merely as means 
to others' ends. Hence, whoever uses men in this way, or 
attempts to reduce them to such a state or to keep them in it, 
acts contrary to the law of justice, which demands that the 
freedom of others be respected. 

Finally, we may also add a sixth sphere of interests, which is 
closely connected with the fourth and fifth, the spiritual life, 
which expresses itself in convictions, views, beliefs, religion, 
morality, and habits of life. Persecutions, aspersions, open or 
concealed signs of contempt, scornful neglect, importunate 
attempts at conversion, are some of the forms of interfer- 
ence with this field. The inner state which tends to such 
forms of injustice, we are in the habit of calling intolerance. 



636 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

It has its natural roots partly in man's dependence and need 
of society, the gregarious instinct, partly in his arrogance 
and the conceited belief in his own infallibility. The majority 
of men are sure of their ground only when their fellows 
are going in the same direction, thinking the same thoughts. 
Hence, they demand that everybody accommodate himself to 
them. Deviations from the common rule are regarded as 
disturbances and give offence, and hence all means are em- 
ployed that seem suited either to bring the dissenter into har- 
mony with his fellows or to remove him from view, and to 
deter others from imitating his example. Arrogance has the 
same effect upon the leaders of the masses. They regard it 
as an intolerable presumption on the part of an individual to 
refuse to follow their leadership, for does he not thereby 
tacitly accuse the appointed authorities of error ? What would 
happen if everybody were to dare such a thing ? An example 
must therefore be made. The opposite habit of mind is called 
toleration ; liberality of mind would perhaps be a more appro- 
priate term. A liberal education shows itself in the ability 
to understand and to recognize what is strange and different. 
It is acquired only by frequent contact with the extraordi- 
nary, be it personal, literary, or historical. In narrow 
spheres the mind remains narrow ; nations, classes, scholas- 
tic sects, religious communities, which live for themselves and 
scarcely come in contact with the customs and opinions of 
others, are universally conspicuous for their intolerance. 

This is a field in which the law is most powerless. It can 
reach violations only when they can be construed as libels, 
which is not always the case. And yet such offences may 
cause serious injury ; even mere intrusive attempts at conver- 
sion ultimately become unbearable. The law is powerless 
against them. Nevertheless, toleration is not a favor, but a 
right : morally, every one has the right to demand that we do 
not interfere with his habits, hi3 convictions, and his thoughts 
if he is determined to adhere to them ; and it is a duty to 



JUSTICE 687 

respect this right, provided, of course, the individual's be- 
havior does not violate the rights of others. I have the right 
to win over others to my ways of thinking and acting, only by 
example and by means of persuasion, and in the latter case I 
must respect the rights of others to their own opinions. — The 
difficulty arises with the question : To what extent have tastes, 
habits, assertions, opinions, of which we cannot morally 
approve, a claim to toleration, that is, to what extent shall 
we concede to them equal rights ? It is obvious that I have 
not the right to censure or to express my contempt for every 
statement which cannot be justified morally, or which does 
violence to my moral sense or taste. And it is equally obvious 
that I am not bound in duty to allow everything to pass with- 
out contradiction : it may be in the highest measure justifi- 
able to express my contempt openly. Here again no formula 
can be given which will enable us to decide each particular 
case. We must leave it to tact to discover what is proper 
under these circumstances. 



CHAPTER X 

LOVE OF NEIGHBOR i 

1. Beside justice, the negative side of benevolence, we have 
love of neighbor, the complementary, positive side. We may 
define it as that habit of the will and mode of conduct 
which assists those in want, and strives to promote the wel- 
fare of others by active sympathy. — t is the great command- 
ment of Christianity. In the last judgment man's worth will be 
measured by this standard. " Then shall the King say unto 
them on his right hand, — I was an hungred, and ye gave me 
meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink : I was a stranger, 
and ye took me in : naked, ar> " ye clothed me : I was sick, 
and ye visited me : I was in prison, and ye came unto me." 
Three times more these works of mercy are enumerated, — 
a sermon powerful in its grand simplicity. 

The commandment is so simple and clear that no doubt 
can arise as to its meaning. I meet a hungry man ; what shall 
I do ? — Give him what you have. — Very well. Ten and a 
hundred others come; shall I give to each ? Shall I give until 
I have nothing left for myself ? And shall I not await their 
coming — shall I seek them out ? I hear that my neighbor 
is sick and in want ; I visit him, I help and console him, as 

1 [Paley, Bk. III., Part II. ; Sidgwick, Bk. in., ch. IV. ; Spencer, Inductions, 
chs. VII., VIII; Ethics of Social Life, Pts. V. VI; Porter, Part IL, chs. VII., 
XI.-XIII. ; Hoffding, XII. a, XXXIV., XXXV. ; Wundt, Part III., ch. II., 3, 4 ; 
ch. IV., 3, 4 ; Dorner, pp. 395-403, 605-624 ; Runze, § 79, § 60 ; Statistics, 
Oettingen, § 36. — See also Lecky, History of European Morals, II., 85-101, and 
references under ch. VIII. supra. — Tr.1 



LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 639 

well as I can. Shall I go farther ? Shall I hunt up the sick 
and the needy everywhere ? I am sure that there are always 
hundreds of them in this city, and that they need help and 
consolation ; shall I always be on the road from one to the 
other ? And what is to become of my own affairs in the 
meanwhile ? Shall I calmly neglect them and always look 
out for others ? There are hundreds of families in the land 
whom I might assist, by word and by deed, in bettering their 
conditions: shall I visit all of them, shall I look for them, 
advise them and help them ? Is this the meaning of the 
commandment of love of neighbor? 

It is easy to see that in that case I should have neither 
time nor strength left for myself and my own business. 
The commandment would defeat itself. If it were a duty, 
always and under all circumstances, first to look after the 
affairs of others, before attending to one's own, the perfect 
fulfilment of the law by all would lead to a complete confu- 
sion of all human things, to an absurd interchange of duties. 
If every one would follow Jesus's advice to the rich young 
man and " sell whatsoever he hath and give to the poor," the 
result would be a ceaseless circulation of commodities, or 
rather there would be no one left to buy and receive them. 
The law taken universally destroys itself. It presupposes 
that there are others who desire to buy and receive, regard- 
less of the law. 

This commandment must, therefore, be somewhat re- 
stricted, or more narrowly denned, if it is to hold as a uni- 
versal moral law. We may perhaps consider the matter from 
the following points of view. 

(1) The duty to care for the welfare of others is limited, 
first, by the duties which grow out of ones own life. The 
individual's first duty is to develop and exercise the capacities 
and powers which are given him, and to make his own life 
beautiful and good. His own individual life is the field which 
it is his special mission to cultivate. For this work he is 



640 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

especially fitted by natural inclination and insight. In the 

last analysis, every man knows what is good for him better 

than anybody else. Care for the welfare of others should 

therefore not prevent the performance of this most immediate 

duty. 

This principle undoubtedly governs our actual behavior and 

judgment. If a rich and talented young man, alarmed by the 

command of the Gospel, were to sell his small inheritance 

and give to the poor, if he were to abandon his studies and 

nurse the sick in their homes or in the hospitals, without 

being specially qualified for such work, we should not 

approve of his course. We should praise his self-sacrifice 

and humility, but we should not applaud his conduct and set 

it up as an example for others to follow, nay, we should 

even say that he could and ought to have put his talents to 

better use. Had he quietly continued his studies, had he 

become an able physician, preacher, or teacher, his own life 

would have been richer and more beautiful, and he could 

have done more for others. And so we shall be obliged to 

say : Each person does the most for himself and others when 

he makes the most of himself. Raphael and Goethe benefited 

humanity simply by unfolding the inborn capacities of their 

natures. 

Wenn die Rose selbst sich schmuckt, 
Schmiickt sie auch den Garten. 

We cannot question the validity of the universal propose 
tion. The difficulty lies in its application to concrete condi- 
tions. Is a particular act which I do for others compatible 
with my own duties ? My friend is sick, I devote my entire 
time to his cure, without hesitation. But he remains an 
invalid ; the physicians send him to a different climate ; 
shall I, can I, accompany him, sacrifice my education, my 
life for him ? This cannot be decided by the general for- 
mula of duty, but only by a consideration of the concrete cir- 
cumstances ; it will ultimately be decided not by the reason 



LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 641 

but by the heart. And, as a rule, we shall feel inclined to 
applaud the man who obeys his heart more than his reason in 
these things. We admire the heroism of a woman who 
resolves to follow her husband into solitude, into exile, or into 
imprisonment. We respect the sister of charity who sacri- 
fices her life and gives up everything to nurse strangers upon 
their sick-beds during the long weary days and nights. We 
say it is altogether possible that such a nature develops and 
exercises the gifts with which it is endowed, a warm heart, 
a skilful and tender hand, a consoling courage, most perfectly 
in such a calling, and so realizes the fullest and most beau- 
tiful form of life possible. But — what is good for one is not 
good for all. 

(2) The duty of caring for the welfare of my neighbor must 
be limited in another way ; I must guard against destroying 
his independence. My act must not weaken his indepen- 
dence ; otherwise it ceases to be beneficent, nay, it may become 
an evil, for self-reliance is a general precondition of a 
healthy and normal life. The object of all help is, after all, 
to make help superfluous. The matter is self-evident when 
it comes to systematic and permanent aid. In education we 
have an example of the most comprehensive and deliberate 
care for others. It is governed solely by the consideration 
that we must train the pupil so that he can take care of 
himself. We call a mother irrational who cannot resist her 
child's entreaties to prepare his lessons for him, we cannot 
praise a father who constantly undertakes to solve the prob- 
lems for his young son which life is beginning to put to him. 
Not to solve problems, but to put the proper problems, that 
is the real function of the educator. In no human relation 
has true beneficence a different function, —-it realizes its end 
only when it succeeds in making the person self-sustaining. 
This is especially true of all economic assistance : the 
problem is to remove the need for help. 

(3) There is finally a third restriction, or, rather, narrower 

41 



642 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

determination, of the universal duty of love of neighbor : that 
made necessary by our special duties toward special neighbors. 
Every man is related to persons who have special claims 
upon his benevolence and active sympathy, — to children and 
parents, relatives and friends, servants and laborers, neighbors 
and inmates of the same house. His strength and possessions 
belong to these first of all. If any one were to give away 
his fortune to strangers and beggars or to all kinds of chari- 
table enterprises, and were to let the members of his own 
household suffer want, or if a mother were to accept the 
presidency of seven benevolent associations, and shamefully to 
neglect her own children, we should not be very lenient in our 
judgment of them. We should say : first duty, then the super- 
erogatory ; first perform your particular duties and then 
search for further problems to solve. By these special con- 
ditions the virtue of charity or love of neighbor is confined to 
a fixed channel, as it were, through which it flows as a per- 
manent stream and fructifies its banks. Here, too, everybody 
knows with some degree of certainty what is good for those 
nearest to him, but it is much more difficult and often impos- 
sible to tell how to help strangers. And here, too, we must 
think of the collective bodies to which the individual belongs. 
The community and the nation have legitimate claims upon 
him, and their permanent charitable institutions supply him 
with a safe channel in which to exercise his sympathy with 
others' welfare. 

The formula of the love of neighbor, Care for the welfare 
of others, must therefore be limited and supplemented as 
follows : In so far as this can be done without neglecting the 
problems of your own life, without violating the special duties 
which arise from your special relations to individuals and 
collective bodies, and finally, without weakening the self- 
reliance of others. 

2. Common-sense, by beneficence, means above all so-called 
almsgiving, and popular opinion is to this day somewhat in- 



LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 643 

clined to regard almsgiving as absolutely meritorious ; hence 
a word about it will not be out of place. 

Moral philosophy cannot subscribe to this view, except to a 
very limited extent. Promiscuous almsgiving perhaps results 
in more evil than good. It is particularly apt to violate the 
second of the above mentioned provisions : it has neither the 
intention nor the effect of making the recipient economically 
independent; only too often does it educate parasites, who 
are a pleasure neither to themselves nor to others. We give a 
beggar an alms. The direct effect is that the man's hunger is 
satisfied. But another effect necessarily follows : the recip- 
ient is taught to expect that the next time he is hungry some 
one will feed him again. The gift will therefore encourage 
him to believe that there is another, perhaps more successful 
and at any rate more convenient, means of gaining a liveli- 
hood than labor, that is, begging. If a beggar's life is not 
a good life, then almsgiving, which promotes beggary, is not 
beneficence. — We frequently hear people complaining of the 
impudence of mendicants : Here comes the same young beg- 
gar who was here yesterday ; but won't I give him a piece of 
my mind ! — It seems to me the beggar might say : I see 
nothing impudent in my behavior ; I was hungry yesterday and 
you gave me money to satisfy my hunger ; conditions are pre- 
cisely what they were yesterday ; why do you want to behave 
differently to-day ? I am not impudent, but you are incon- 
sistent. I trusted in your tacit declaration that you would 
support me in case of need ; consequently I have come back, 
and now you want to abuse me ? — I do not see what answer 
the almsgiver could make, except this : I did not clearly see 
what I was doing yesterday, and therefore beg your pardon 
for having raised expectations which I cannot or will not 
fulfil. And perhaps he might, to be thoroughly honest, say 
to himself: When I gave the alms, nothing was really further 
from my thoughts than the welfare of the stranger ; it was 
simply a way of getting rid of him. Habit, convenience, or 



644 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

perhaps the fear of a wicked face, prompted me to put my 
hand into my pocket. 

Indeed, true charity acts differently. It tries, first of all, 
to find out what is the cause of the trouble ; without a 
knowledge of the causes of the distress it is absolutely impos- 
sible to render assistance. Promiscuous almsgiving is like 
quackery, which, without investigating the disease, prescribes 
a cure-all. If the trouble is due to an unhappy accident, 
causing temporary embarrassment, the philanthropist will 
help to overcome it by word and by deed. If it is due to 
permanent disability, he will endeavor to assist the person 
in obtaining permanent support. If aversion to work is the 
reason for mendicancy, he will refuse to recognize and foster 
this branch of industry by alms. Of course, it is much easier 
to give the beggar a nickel and to dismiss him than to take 
an interest in him, which latter indeed may not always be 
possible, owing to the " anonymousness " of metropolitan life. 
But whoever cannot or will not help has no right to dabble 
in the affairs of a fellow-man. Of late years, the authorities 
have repeatedly prohibited the giving of alms to mendicant 
vagabonds ; a measure which is justifiable in principle. Care- 
less beneficence is really maleficence, a crime against the 
beggar, whom it encourages, as well as against others, who 
are tempted by the example to follow the same life, and 
finally also against those who are overrun by the army of 
tramps which owes its existence to such negligence. If the 
flooding of a country with beggars is a plague, it is evidently 
an offence against the welfare of the country to encourage 
the thing. To be sure, the prohibition of mendicancy and 
almsgiving ought simply to be the other side of organized 
public charity, which finds work for the unemployed and 
helps those in need. 

Moreover, we must not imagine that almsgiving to beggars 
and tramps is the only form of careless charity. There are, 
beside these vulgar forms, also elegant forms of begging. 



LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 645 

which are no less dangerous to welfare. How many a great 
house scatters the germs of ruin among its clients in the 
shape of presents, gifts, and favors! They are pampered, 
made covetous, shameless, beggarly, envious, mendacious, thiev- 
ish, and the consequence is their benefactors usually grow tired 
of them, and, if possible, get rid of them by referring them 
to some public charity. In such houses much is said of the 
wickedness and ingratitude of the human race. The story is 
told that Max Joseph, the first King of Bavaria, received from 
the general treasurer one thousand guldens every morning for 
" charity." When this sum was spent — and it did not last 
very long, for beggars and needy persons of every rank and 
station crowded around him as soon as he made his appear- 
ance, — " he gave orders upon the bankers, the sinking-fund, 
the lottery-fund, the war-economy-treasury. His mania for 
giving was carefully nourished by those who benefited by it, 
and he grew indignant at every measure of economy, regard- 
ing it as an encroachment upon his rights. While money 
was wanting for the most urgent needs, and the officials 
had to wait for their salaries for months, the beggars lived 
in luxury." x 

This form of " charity " was evidently a perversion of the 
duties of the royal office, a crime against the subjects from 
whose pockets the money was taken, and against the parasites 
whom it raised. It is a proof of the multitude's weakness 
for show, that kings and lords of this kind enjoy their favor 
and are loved and praised for their " goodness." There is a 
good Italian proverb : Si buon che vol niente, so good that he 
is good for nothing. 

It can hardly be denied that Christianity has fostered this 
kind of beneficence. Passages are not wanting in the New 
Testament which suggest such a confusion of love of neigh- 
bor with almsgiving, and at the same time seem to recom- 

1 Perthes, Polit. Personen und Zustande zur 2kit der franzo'sischen Revolution, 
t 3 2, 44S. 



646 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

mend almsgiving as promising future retribution. A passage 
from Chrysostom, which I quote from Uhihorn's work, Die 
Liebesthatigkeit in der alten Itirche, 1 shows this perversion 
in a marked degree. He praises charity : " She is the queen 
among the virtues, who swiftly raises man into the heavens, 
and is the best mediator. Charity has mighty wings ; she 
pierces the air, lifts herself beyond the moon, rises above the 
beaming sun, and extends to the heights of heaven. But she 
does not rest there; she penetrates the heavens, hastens 
through the hosts of angels and the choir of the archangels 
and all the higher hosts, and places herself before the throne 
of the King himself. Learn this from the Holy Scripture, 
which says : 6 Cornelius, thy prayer is heard, and thine alms 
are had in remembrance in the sight of God.' This means : 
Though you have many sins, if you have alms for your inter- 
cessor, fear not ; they call for the payment of the debt and 
bear the signature in their hands." In another place he com- 
pares almsgiving to the prices at the fair : " Here we buy 
justice cheaply, for a piece of bread, a worn-out coat, a drink 
of cold water. So long as the fair lasts let us buy our sal- 
vation with alms." It is plain, here the object is no longer 
the welfare of others, but one's own good — whether in this 
world or in the world to come is immaterial. And there can 
be no doubt that the welfare of others cannot be promoted by 
such charity, which is solely intent upon purchasing rewards 
or exemption from punishment. Still, I am far from believ- 
ing that the charity practised by the Christian church always 
exhibited this trait of calculating speculation. Though the 
hope of reward was apt to be mingled with it, it was not 
often the only effective motive. And perhaps Christianity 
did more good, on the whole, in its educative influence, than 
harm. 

A particularly deplorable form of almsgiving has been 
developed of recent years : the charity-craze. Misfortune, 

i P. 272. 



LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 647 

poverty, and misery are made the pretexts for entertainments 

of all kinds, such as concerts, theatrical performances, balls, 

bazaars at which elegant and beautiful ladies bargain, play, 

and flirt with elegant and rich gentlemen, all for sweet 

charity's sake. We smoke, we breakfast, we gamble, we dance, 

all for charity ; new-fashioned mendicant orders are founded, 

with priors, decorations, and honors, — all for the sake of the 

poor, of course, but at the same time we enjoy the thought of 

how kind-hearted we are, which is no more than right, and 

get a little pleasure for ourselves, according to the formula 

in the second part of Faust : 

Hoch ist der Doppelgewinn zu sch'atzen : 
Barmherzig sein und sich zugleich ergetzen. 1 

© © © 

I must confess that this union of amusement and " charity " 
seems to me an extremely sad sign of the times. This play- 
ing with distress shows how insensitive certain social classes 
have become to the seriousness and wretchedness of life. 
We may say the same of many of the associations which 
make a specialty of collecting alms. A committee is ap- 
pointed to feed poor children ; the ladies X, Y, Z, have 
warm hearts, and it is so interesting to belong to a com- 
mittee, to hold meetings, and to read one's name in the news- 
papers. A circular is issued, collectors are employed and 
equipped with receipt-books, for much money is needed for 
charity. And now the charity begins. Three collectors work 
four hours each day, for the great families who are visited 
are late risers and, besides, they do not like to be disturbed at 
their meals. At the end of the year the books are balanced : 
five thousand marks have been contributed by three thousand 
subscribers ; from this sum subtract three thousand marks 
for the collectors, printing of the report, and advertisements, 
and you have a sum-total of two thousand marks for charity. 
— The collectors proved a veritable plague to those who were 

I 1 Lo, now ! what double gains your deed requite ! 
Tcu show compassion, and you take delight.] 



648 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

appealed to. Have the poor children been benefited ? I have 
not much faith. The sympathy of one individual for another 
is really helpful, and the systematic help of the community 
can at least keep the wolf from the door. On the other hand, 
I am afraid that such collection-charity, which expects others 
to do the contributing, like the charity-craze, never yields 
blessings, but simply rears greedy beggars. It may serve as 
an excuse that the metropolis destroys all other personal re- 
lations between the rich and the poor, and yet the rich desire 
to ease their consciences by doing something for those in 
want, so they help in the manner indicated. 

However, I am not of the opinion that societies for the 
organized distribution of charity are not good and useful. 
An association which combines freedom of movement with 
order and permanency is undoubtedly an entirely suitable 
form of charitable activity. And there are doubtless excel- 
lent and helpful societies. Nor can we altogether disapprove 
of the method of inducing larger circles to make financial 
contributions. But instead of angrily and moodily throwing 
a few nickels at every collector who presents himself, the 
givers should make up their minds to become active mem- 
bers of some organization, of whose usefulness they have 
convinced themselves. If they could only take an active in- 
terest in these enterprises, their sympathy would be really 
helpful, and their own lives would be enriched thereby. 

3. The opposite of love of neighbor is heartless selfishness, 
which seeks its own advantage, regardless of others or even 
at the expense of others. The intensification of it is malice, 
which takes pleasure in the distress and sufferings of others 
even without advantage to self. As cruelty it causes physical 
or mental sufferings, simply in order to feed upon them. 

This habit does not commonly express itself in those brutal 
attacks upon the persons and interests of others which the 
criminal law pursues, but in the thousand little inconsiderate, 
malicious acts which are observed in our dailv intercourse 



LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 649 

with men. Four or five persons are sitting in a railroad 
coupe* ; a new traveller enters, they all stare at him with 
angry and hateful looks, each one seeming to say : Don't 
come near me ! No one dreams of offering him a seat, or of 
removing his baggage ; we merely wait until the intruder 
threatens to sit upon our things, then we grumblingly shove 
them aside, or begin to quarrel with the man. And so these 
people will sit together, side by side, in the narrow com- 
partment making themselves as disagreeable to each other 
as possible, in the meanwhile boiling over with rage. If, 
instead, one of the passengers had politely made room for 
the new-comer, a pleasant feeling would have been aroused 
at once, and perhaps a friendly conversation might have been 
begun, bringing into the tiresome railroad journey sociability 
and good cheer. These are little things, but life is made up 
of little things, and our moods are determined much more 
by such countless daily trifles than by the great and unusual 
occurrences. There are persons who are always waiting for 
an opportunity to perform some great and heroic act of 
charity, who even believe that they would be ready to sacri- 
fice themselves if need be ; and in the meantime they are 
wearing away their own lives and those of their fellowmen 
with their petty troubles and malicious remarks. 

Besides, it can hardly be doubted that the plain people 
treat each other with much more consideration than the 
members of so-called good society. Among the latter an 
accidental collision soon leads to a bitter discussion ; while 
the matter is at once passed off with a jest among the former. 
The general inclination to take life easy is manifested in 
intercourse by the tendency to make the life of others easy 
and cheerful. Among the so-called educated the fear of 
lowering one's dignity is always alive. Politeness and civility 
are regarded as a sign of self-debasement, as a lowering of 
one's dignity. A repellent nature says to others : Come on, 
I am not afraid of you ! There is a kind of starched-lineu 



650 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

haughtiness which is always on the look-out lest some one 
should become too familiar or presume to be somebody. Per- 
sons may even be found, who will, with a kind of secret 
pleasure, observe others doing what they can interpret as 
offences against their own persons, so that they may after- 
wards have the satisfaction of becoming angry and of holding 
it up to them. Yes, if you ask them beforehand whether they 
approve of a certain course or not, they will lead you astray, 
simply that they may afterwards grumblingly and ill-humoredly 
complain of the suffered wrong. It is arrogance which in- 
spires such conduct ; we do not like to appear in the r6le of 
needing considerate treatment and of asking for it ; it looks 
more lordly and more elegant first to act indifferently and to 
become angry afterwards. And hence haughtiness does not 
deserve the last place among the plagues of humanity. The 
church is right in reckoning it among the seven deadly sins. 

A field in which cold-heartedness and malice are particu- 
larly common, deserves mention here : the habit, namely, of 
sitting in judgment upon one's neighbor. Everything that the 
latter says or does is misconstrued and spitefully exposed to 
the ridicule and ill-will of his fellows. An evil or a base 
motive is always imputed to him, his prosperity is attributed to 
evil means, his misfortune is regarded as his own doing. He 
belongs to the Liberal party : of course he receives Jewish 
money. He votes the Conservative ticket : why, to be sure, he 
is fawning upon his superiors. He is successful in business, he 
becomes rich : he is certainly a swindler, and owes his suc- 
cess to crooked methods. He meets with literary success : all 
those who are not so fortunate at once agree that it is because 
he appeals to people who have no judgment ; why, of course, 
if we desired to cater to the vulgar tastes of the public, or 
to flatter the intellectual indolence and superficiality of the 
reader, we could be famous too, — if we were not above such 
things ! A girl makes a good match ; all those who were 
striving for the same good fortune at once begin to tell how 



LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 651 

•he encouraged the man, what means she employed to catch 
him. — As a rule, it is envy that pronounces judgment upon 
our dear brother and then with lynx eyes discovers the rea- 
sons for his fault. But pure malice also suffices ; nothing in 
this world affords the malicious man greater pleasure than 
the sight of the stains upon the honor of his fellow. 

It is this base tendency in human nature which the Gospel 
attacks with such zeal. Even if your opinion is correct, it is 
not your mission to sit in judgment upon your neighbor. He 
is not accountable to you but to God, and in His sight you are 
no less guilty than he. Hence, " Judge not that ye be not 
judged, condemn not that ye be not condemned." 

The opposite of unfeelingness is love, as Paul describes it : 
" It suffereth long and is kind, envieth not and vaunteth not 
itself, is not puffed up, it doth not behave itself unseemly, 
seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, 
rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth ; beareth 
all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all 
things." 

The thirteenth chapter of Corinthians has been called the 
Song of Love Qiohe Lied der Liebe). Perhaps we may more 
properly call it the simplest description of love in its most 
modest form, of the little workaday, homespun love of neigh- 
bor, the love which does not vaunt itself, which does nothing 
extraordinary and grand and sensational, which does not give 
its body to be burned, or give its possessions to the poor, but 
simply consists in taking and bearing the neighbor as he is, 
which does not court favors from him but meets him every 
day with the same and greater kindness. This is the real, 
true love of neighbor, and when it enters a house it brings 
happiness, not the great happiness of which people speak, 
but the little workaday happiness, the true happiness. And 
this love and happiness as gladly abides in modest homes as 
in proud palaces, or much rather ; at any rate it desires to 
dwell in modest hearts alone, not in haughty and covetous souls 



t>02 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

4. The significance of love of neighbor for human conduct 
hardly needs further comment after all we have said : it 
diminishes suffering and want, it increases welfare and 
happiness, it unites hearts in affection and trust. 

The immediate effect of active benevolence is that it 
lightens, elevates, and promotes the life of him upon whom 
it is bestowed. It also inspires him with courage and confi- 
dence for the future. It at the same time fills him with 
kindly feelings, not only towards the benefactor but towards 
the whole world ; charity wants to be passed along, to go 
from hand to hand, without end. Even when the helping 
hand does not succeed in removing the misery, the bitterness 
of the pain is assuaged by sympathy and condolence. The 
heart that would pine away and famish in solitude and neg- 
lect again revives, patience and hope or resignation enter the 
soul, and make life bearable. When, on the other hand, the 
unfortunate one is repelled and meets with harshness, it fills 
his heart with the bitterest feelings, it ultimately hardens it, 
making it misanthropic and wicked. 

How many a criminal may trace the beginning of his 
career to unkind, repellent treatment in misfortune ! If a 
helping hand had been extended at the right moment, it 
might have saved a human soul from destruction. It was not 
offered, the first step upon the wrong path was taken and 
drew all the others after it, until the road ended in the peni- 
tentiary. Want and bitterness over their helplessness, in the 
opinion of an experienced official in the criminal service, brings 
one half of all criminals to the penitentiary. 1 " From the 
cradle to the grave, the sun of life does not smile upon them, 
they see only the rough side of life; So long as they can 
remember, they have suffered this undeserved lot ; they, the 
serfs of misery and neglect, look with envy upon their unde- 
servedly happier fellows. And to their envy are joined feelings 

1 H. von Valentini, Das Verbrechertum im Preussischen Staate 'I ^9 ) , a book 
which contains many suggestive facts. 



LOYE OF NEIGHBOR 658 

of hatred on account of the harshness and pride of the latter, a 
hatred which is quite natural in view of the superciliousness 
with which these regard them, — as though their respective 
stations in life were the result of individual merit or individual 
demerit." It is made easy for those reared in love on " the 
sunny side of life " to believe in eternal love, but how shall 
these children of the night attain to faith, hope, and love? 
There is only one way, charitable love. Harshness will not 
avail : it simply hardens them and makes them morose. But 
even love cannot heal with tenderness and softness : it must 
wield the strong rod of discipline. 

Active benevolence, however, also enriches and blesses the 
life of him who practises it. We are not made poorer by 
giving, says an old proverb ; 1 certainly not, we are made 
richer, if not in outward, at least in inner blessings. There is 
no purer, no more beautiful and lasting joy than that acquired 
by beneficence. The poorest little favor or service which you 
unselfishly offer the stranger whom you meet upon the street, 
has the power to yield you lasting pleasure in memory. And 
the pleasure is the intenser and the more lasting, the more you 
suppress your sensuous selfish inclinations in doing the deed. 
The triumph of our selfish inclinations, on the contrary, over 
the wishes and purposes of others always leaves a bitter 
after-taste, the bitterer, the greater the sacrifice of others' 
welfare at which it was bought. It has therefore been said, 
not unjustly, that the straight way to one's own happiness is to 
work for the happiness of others. A benevolent heart that is 
free from envy is the best endowment even so far as one's in- 
dividual happiness is concerned. The pleasure which it arouses 
in its surroundings is reflected back upon it, and calls forth 
sympathetic emotions. Perhaps, the only time you share in 
the happiness of others, wholly without envy, is when you have 

1 [Compare the verse in Proverbs, XL, 24: "There is that scattereth and yet 
increaseth ; and there is that withholdeth more than ia meet, bnt it tendeth to 
"overtv." " The liberal #oul shall be made fat." — T*.1 



654 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIEb 

helped to make it. Benevolence wins confidence and affec- 
tion ; there is no commodity which bears greater interest and 
makes one so happy as this, and it may be acquired anew 
every day. And do not believe that you must be a rich man 
or a great lord in order to do good. No one is too poor or too 
weak to do good ; the kind word, the little favor, is a hun- 
dred times more desirable and not rarely infinitely more 
valuable than great favors or rich gifts. No man need be 
deprived of the blessing and pleasure of doing good. When 
you feel utterly miserable and in desperate straits, I once 
heard a preacher say, ask yourself whether there is not a 
single person in the world whom you can make happy. 

And the reverse is also true. There is no surer way to 
unhappiness than a selfish heart. Intent solely upon his 
own happiness or what his momentary desires picture to him 
as such, the egoist sees nothing but rivals around him who 
are making for the same goal and endeavoring to outstrip 
him. In his breathless haste he is constantly goaded by 
fear and hatred to exert his utmost efforts. And notwith- 
standing all this, some one outstrips him, and now envy 
is tearing his vitals, the bitterest of all feelings, the grief 
aroused by the success of others, poisoned by the pain of 
his own defeat. Contentment can never find a place in 
a man of pronounced selfishness : envy, hatred, and fear 
constantly harrow his soul and never give him peace or 
let him enjoy what he has achieved. — In addition to this, 
selfishness arouses distrust and aversion in the surround- 
ings, feelings which manifest themselves in unkind deeds 
and malicious joy. Let the tyrant attempt to deceive him- 
self with the saying, I care not whether they hate me so 
long as they fear me : — the day will come when the hatred 
will triumph in spite of the fear. 

Therefore : benevolence brings peace and joy ; selfishness 
arouses enmity and unhappiness; love is life; selfishness, 
death. 



LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 655 

5. Let me say a word about gratitude. Thankfulness is 
the feeling aroused in a healthy soul by benevolence and 
beneficence ; the permanent state is devotion or piety. Grati- 
tude naturally tends to encourage benevolence, while in- 
gratitude discourages it : it is the declaration, so to speak, 
that assistance and good will have been wasted upon the 
recipient, for otherwise how could he fail joyfully and grate- 
fully to acknowledge the kindness ? Wasted also so far as 
the benefactor is concerned : frequent disappointments of this 
kind can change a philanthropist into a misanthrope. 

The complaint of the ingratitude of man is a common 
theme of pessimistic eloquence. And we shall have to con- 
fess that human nature, in general, has a better memory 
for injuries than for benefits. The psychological explana- 
tion is that gratitude does not flatter our vanity like re- 
venge. Gratitude seems to express inferiority ; revenge, on 
the contrary, is so sweet because it is connected with an 
intensification of self-love. I was down when he wounded me 
and defeated me ; now I have shown him what I can do. 
When gratitude has the same effect, when it can show itself 
by retaliation, we may count upon it much more readily than 
when it can be expressed only by devotion. But this re- 
lation is often obscured by feigned gratitude, which is ready 
with words, but not with deeds. La Rochefoucauld's remark 
applies to feigned gratitude : " Gratitude is mostly nothing 
but the declaration of a man's willingness to accept further 
benefits." 

Besides, we might also offer as a defense of human nature 
against the charge of ingratitude the fact that pure and un- 
selfish benevolence, benevolence which is rational and really 
beneficent, is not very common either. Perhaps ingratitude 
is just as common as selfish and irrational " beneficence." 
When the apish love of sentimental mothers reaps ingrati- 
tude, it is a just retribution for spoiling the child ; they 
deserve no other reward, for what they sought was the satis- 



656 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

faction of their own impulses. If an extravagant and importu- 
nate patron is forsaken as soon as he has nothing more to 
give, what else does he deserve ? He has as much right to 
complain of ingratitude, as Rousseau delicately puts it, as a 
fisherman has of accusing the fish of ingratitude for hav- 
ing devoured the bait and not having swallowed the hook. 
For this reason, too, it is always absurd for nations to accuse 
each other of ingratitude. 

Perhaps, then, we may say that sincere gratitude is just 
as common as genuine benevolence. Truly unselfish benevo- 
lence, which is not working for gratitude, will readily receive 
gratitude. This is particularly apparent in all permanent 
relations that are founded upon benevolence : the immediate 
natural effect of true and rational beneficence is affectionate 
piety. Parents who have trained their children to be honest, 
able, and upright men, will have no reason to complain of 
ingratitude. Teachers who faithfully fulfil their mission to 
develop human souls will not fail to arouse affectionate 
reverence in their pupils. A government that remains true 
to its high mission to administer justice upon earth may 
count upon the obedience and the loyalty of its subjects. 

6. Benevolence is chiefly concerned with the relation of 
the individual to the individual. It appears in a new form 
in affection for and devotion to collective bodies. Let me add 
a few remarks in reference to this phase of it. 

Feelings of good will (evvoia) for collective bodies are mani- 
fested in three fundamental forms — aside from the family 
union, where the feeling of affection is still essentially an 
individual affair, — as love of home, love of country, and love 
of humanity. 

The tie that binds us to these collective bodies is woven 
of many threads. We discover in it, first, feelings of affec- 
tion and piety for particular persons ; these are transferred 
from the individuals to the communities of which the latter 
are members and representatives. Our parents and ances- 



LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 657 

tors, our brothers and sisters and playmates, our friends and 
our neighbors, attach us in gratitude and love to our homes 
and the home-folks. The memories of our joys and sorrows, 
of the games and dreams of our childhood, the hopes and 
longings of our youth, are interwoven with the native heath 
and the native skies ; the home customs are inseparable from 
the home-country. Thus the heart is bound with a thousand 
threads to the home ; the farther away it is in space and 
time, the nearer it is to the heart, the more longingly our 
thoughts turn back to it. Through the home we are united 
with the people and the fatherland ; the community of spirit- 
ual life, as it is immediately expressed in language, the com- 
munity of historical life, the common reverence of the heroes 
and leaders of the people in war and victory as well as in 
the works of peace, bind us together in common feelings, 
thoughts, and beliefs. The life of the people is the soil on 
which the individual life grows ; from it the latter absorbs 
whatever of life and strength, mental and moral excellence 
it possesses. Hence the individual is bound to his country 
by ties of gratitude, reverence, love and affection. To these 
are added pride ; a common honor binds the individual to his 
home and his people; it even continues where the bond of 
love has been severed. The exile who leaves his home full 
of anger and hatred discovers in strange lands that his heart 
cannot forget his native heath. In foreign parts he learns 
to appreciate the value of his home, which forms an inalien- 
able endowment of his soul. The respect for his own people 
comes back to him, and prepares the soil for new feelings 
of attachment and love. The home and the people, finally, 
also unite the individual to humanity. The nation with 
its historical life appropriates the great spiritual goods of 
humanity, assimilating them in its own peculiar way, and 
each member of the people participates in the life of human- 
ity, and thankfully acknowledges his membership in the great 
kingdom of spirits and of God upon earth. 



658 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

We are accustomed to regard our relations to our own peo- 
ple as the most important of these relations, and this is most 
likely the truth. We call the subjective relation of the 
individual to his people patriotism, and this is at present 
reckoned among the highest virtues of man. The word is 
not jet old, and it is worthy of note that it is of foreign 
extraction. It was borrowed from the French during the last 
century, a sign that the thing itself is not old and not of 
native origin. If I am not mistaken, the word patriot did not 
come into general use until the French revolution. The 
Jacobins called themselves patriots in distinction from the 
Royalists. A patriot was one who endeavored to make 
the state an affair of the " people " or to make the people the 
subjects of the state, in distinction from those who regarded 
the state as belonging to the dynasty. The word patriotism, 
therefore, to this day, has especial reference to the state. It 
is used to characterize the proper attitude of the individual 
not so much to the people as to the state. Political ortho- 
doxy is always prone to claim patriotism for itself alone and 
to deny it to its opponents. The Jacobins monopolized the 
name patriot in revolutionary France, as did the advocates of 
absolutism in Prussia during the fifties. 

It is plain that the relation of the individual to his people 
is somewhat one-sidedly defined by this term, not to speak 
of its misuse by parties. A man may be deeply attached to 
his people, he may love it and live for it without exactly 
living for the state. Nay, a certain indifference to and even 
estrangement from the state and politics may go together 
with a deep feeling of affection for the people and all that 
concerns it. Goethe was certainly a sincere child of his 
people, and was devotedly attached to everything German ; 
and Luther was a thorough German. Nevertheless, we should 
hardly call these men patriots : it was not the state for which 
they lived, which they loved, but the people. Indeed, we are 
forced to say : We cannot love the state as such, we can only 



LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 659 

love a being ; the state, however, is not a being, but an institu- 
tion, a function. A people is a being that we can love ; the 
state we may esteem, respect, be proud of, but we cannot 
love it. 

This one-sided accentuation of the individual's relation 
to the state, moreover, apparently depends upon the con- 
dition of our times. The life of the European nations is 
governed by the ideal of nationality, that is, the desire to 
construct national states. For three generations passionate 
attempts have been made to realize this ideal. I am cer- 
tainly far from wishing to deny or to lessen the value of 
these aspirations. The state is the natural form of a 
nation's existence. Without the state it is in danger of 
losing even its nationality, and hence no individual should 
be indifferent to the state as such. But the one-sided 
conception of the relation of the individual to his people 
prepares the way for certain abuses which were hardly 
known to former ages. Patriotism is now frequently used 
both as an advertisement for party fanaticism and as a cloak 
for chauvinism. National arrogance and hatred of foreigners 
hide behind its name, and abuse every one who does not 
agree with them. When it comes to French or Bohemian 
patriotism we have no trouble in recognizing the ugliness 
and absurdity of the thing ; but it is no more becoming to us 
Germans than to other nations. If patriotism continues to 
develop in this direction, it will become a morbid degenera- 
tion and a serious menace to the life of the European nations. 
If the instincts of those nations whose history and geographi- 
cal position make it advisable for them to live together in 
peace, continue, instead, in the direction of hatred and de- 
struction, they will, to speak with the Apostle, devour one 
another. Do not say that it is a necessity for the particular 
nation to cherish such " patriotic " feelings in view of its 
hostile neighbors. Are national pride, hatred, and contempt 
for neighboring nations, if not virtues, at least useful quali* 



660 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

ties in the struggle for existence ? I think not. Hate impels 
men to seek quarrels, and pride turns their heads. But pride 
goes before the fall: this is as true of nations as of indi- 
viduals. Now, whoever does not believe that it is desirable 
for a nation to hate and be hostile to its neighbors, cannot 
regard such a disposition as a desirable endowment. A 
people must have a feeling of self-respect ; it cannot live with- 
out it. But there is a calm and firm self-reliance, which 
understands and respects what is foreign and yet is wholly 
conscious of its own value, which desires to be and to remain 
what it is, and does not bow down before the foreign either 
in imitation or in consequence of force. Such a healthy 
feeling of self-respect is wholly compatible with respect for 
and justice to foreigners, in the case of individuals as well 
as nations. Nay, arrogance and hatred are really always 
the signs of an irritable, diseased self-consciousness ; that 
is, one that has no confidence in itself. 

The Germans used to pride themselves on their readiness to 
recognize and their ability to understand the spiritual life of 
foreigners. We have often and justly boasted that no nation 
has equalled us in assimilating the literature and poetry of 
other nations, and that none therefore has participated in 
the history of the past centuries in so universal a spirit as 
we. Freedom from selfish, arrogant, vain, and narrow-minded 
self-conceit, which the flatterers of popular passion call pa- 
triotism, has enabled the German people to do this. Have 
we still the right to boast of such freedom ? One thing we 
may say : Thus far the German people, or at least their 
political leaders, have borne the honors of their new position 
of power among the European nations with great and unusual 
modesty. But perhaps there is ground for adding-. The 
German nation has reason to be on its guard, that it may 
not forfeit this mental freedom. 

The question concerning the function of education and par- 
ticularly of the school, in arousing patriotism, has been much 



LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 661 

discussed. The main thing, in my opinion, is to guard love 
of country against degenerating into a false patriotism. Love 
and affection for one's own people and its great leaders in war 
and peace is a natural feeling, which arises spontaneously in 
the healthy mind reared under healthy conditions. Why 
should not a person borne and reared by a German mother, 
taught by German teachers, nurtured by German poets, be 
German in his feelings and thoughts ? And why should he 
not lovingly and faithfully cling to his people ? And why 
should he not be proud of its virtues and achievements ? 
But respect for and justice to the foreign do not arise of their 
own accord. On the contrary, contempt and hatred are the 
natural feelings here. To suffer and understand the foreign 
is culture. It is a beautiful mission for our higher schools to 
offer such culture. The masses of the people hardly see beyond 
the boundaries of their own nation ; in war only do they come 
into closer contact with the foreign. The gymnasium in its 
old and in its new form makes the acquisition of foreign lan- 
guages the chief factor in its instruction. This is to enable the 
future governors and leaders of the people to understand and 
to preserve the historical connections of their own race. Such 
instruction assumes that the spiritual life of our people is not 
isolated and cannot thrive in isolation, — that our people is a 
member of the European family of nations, which contains 
other members of equal worth, by which its own life is sup- 
plemented and enriched. The ultimate goal of a humanistic 
education would be to enable the individual to participate 
more freely in the spiritual life of his own people, by teaching 
him to understand human life in its historical unity. That 
would be humanistic education in the highest sense of the 
term ; in it the love of country and appreciation of humanity 
would be fused. 

If the propagation of such humanistic culture were to 
weaken the feelings of enmity pervading the leading classes 
among the European nations, if it would in a measure prepare 



662 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

the way for the " eternal peace " which the eighteenth century 
foretold, and which seems to be so infinitely remote to the 
nineteenth century, it would be no small gain. The European 
nations will have to accustom themselves to the thought that, 
inasmuch as providence has decreed that they must live to- 
gether, it will be best for them to settle their differences 
otherwise than by war. The spirit of brotherly love already 
prevails among them to such an extent that none of the great 
civilized nations would be willing to see any of the others 
annihilated, or to bring about such a result itself. Wars of 
extermination are no longer carried on among them ; quarrels 
are settled by forcible means at present, merely because a 
new and different method has not yet been discovered. 

It is to be hoped that the future will bring back enough of 
the humane cosmopolitanism of earlier times to restrict and 
supplement patriotism. It is also to be hoped that it will 
give back to us some of our old love of home. This, too, has 
been somewhat stifled by the present evolution of state and 
national patriotism. " Local patriotism," like cosmopolitan- 
ism, has for a long time been an object of contempt and 
abuse. We can understand why this is so. Germany was 
formerly split up into a lot of little states, until the establish- 
ment of a German united state became a necessity in order to 
enable the German people to act as a political subject among 
other nations, after having for centuries been nothing but a 
political object. But now that our legitimate and passionate 
yearning for political unity has been satisfied, let us hope that 
our people's deeply rooted love of home will again assert itself. 
It is evidently not desirable that we interest ourselves and 
participate solely in the public affairs of the Empire, or, what 
is worse, that we waste our efforts in political discussions and 
patriotic manifestations. The sphere of political life, in which 
the individual can find regular and fruitful employment, is 
for most persons circumscribed by the communities in which 
they live. The community is the proper place for the most 



LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 663 

essential functions of collective life ; the school, the church, 
charitable institutions, public enterprises of all kinds, offer 
the public-spirited man ample opportunity for exercising his 
capacities. Here even the plain man of the people can labor 
freely and fruitfully for the public weal, whereas in the natu- 
ral course of events he can hardly do anything for the state 
at large except what he m commanded to do. 



CHAPTER XT 

VERACITY l 

1. Veracity may be regarded as a form of benevolence ; 
it is benevolence manifested in the communication of 
thoughts. 

We may, as in the case of benevolence, distinguish two 
phases of veracity : a negative side and a positive side. The 
former, corresponding to justice, is expressed by the formula 
of duty : Thou shalt not lie ; the latter, corresponding to love 
of neighbor, is expressed by the formula of duty : Serve thy 
neighbor with the truth. 

Let us first discuss the negative side. 

To lie, as we are accustomed to define it, means willingly 
and wittingly to tell an untruth in order to deceive others. 
Perhaps it will not be unnecessary to make the definition a 
little narrower by taking account of the fact that falsehood 
sometimes shelters itself behind formal excuses. In the first 
place, of course, words, be they spoken or written, are not 
essential to falsehood. We can lie without words, by acts 
and gestures, or even by keeping silent. An absent one is 
slandered in your presence ; you know that what is said is not 
true, but you have not the courage to contradict it ; it might 
cause you to be disliked or to be evilly spoken of, so you are 

1 [Sidgwick, Bk. III., ch. VII. ; Stephen, ch.V. (IV.); Jhering, II., pp. 578 
ff. ; Porter, Part II., ch. X.; Hoffding, XII. b; Spencer, Inductions, ch. IX.; Smyth, 
Part II., ch. III.; Dorner, 387-393 ; Runze, §§ 69 ff. — Kant, fiber ein vermeinU 
liches Recht aus Menschenliebe zu liigen, 1797; Metaphysik der Sitten (Harten- 
stein), VII., 234-241 ; Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und BOse ; Nordan, Convert 
tional Lies ; J. Morley, On Compromise. — Tr.1 



VERACITY 665 

silent, or smile knowingly. That is lying. Or you wish an 
evil report concerning a third party to be circulated, but you 
are not willing to shoulder the responsibility, and so you 
begin : " Have you heard what is being said of So-and-so ? " 
The newspapers, as well as gossiping women, are in the habit 
of lying in this way : " It is said . . . ; " "In circles which 
are usually well informed it is rumored. . . ." To be sure ; 
how many things are there not rumored ? 

Equivocation is another favorite trick of the liar. L. 
Schmidt a gives a few examples from Greek life. The 
Locrians made a compact with the Siculians, and swore that 
they would keep it so long as they trod the same earth and 
carried their heads upon their shoulders. Previously, how- 
ever, they had put earth into their shoes, and had placed 
garlic heads upon their shoulders under their garments. 

Another favorite method of procedure, developed to an art 
by politicians and historians, is to let the facts themselves 
lie. In discussing one side of a question, an historian 
chooses the most venomous speeches and deeds of its ex- 
treme supporters, and the criticisms and self-reproaches of 
the moderate wing ; in presenting the other side he selects 
the most satisfactory tenets, the most commendable or 
tolerable acts of its friends. Thus by skilfully selecting 
and arranging we can make anything out of everything. 
This, too, is the method of the reviewer who does not like a 
book ; he tears out a handful of phrases or sentences, sur- 
rounds them abundantly with quotation marks, occasionally 
inserts a word or two, and places the stuffed monster before 
the eyes of the reader, thereby arousing his righteous in- 
dignation. There is no absurdity that cannot be drawn from 
a book in this way. A particularly favorite trick of recent 
years is to lie by arranging the figures. Figures never lie, it 
is said. This is not true ; they will prove whatever is expected 
of them. A series of figures is given : " Since the year 1872, 

1 Etkik der Griechen, II., 5. 



566 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

when such and such an official took charge of the school 
system, the number of youthful criminals has increased in the 

following progression . These figures are suggestive ! " 

Of course, says the harmless reader to himself, who is not 
trained in the art of rhetoric, and for him alone leading 
articles are written, this is the result of such a mode of 
government. 

All these things then come under the head of falsehood : To 
lie means to influence others to accept views which you do 
not regard as true yourself, by means of speech or silence, 
by simulation or dissimulation, and by the selection and 
arrangement of facts. 

2. Why is lying wrong ? Intuitional ethics answers with 
common sense : Because it is inherently wrong and disgrace- 
ful. Kant reckons veracity among the duties to self; he 
regards falsehood as the abandonment of one's dignity as 
a man, and places it on a level with suicide : as the latter 
destroys the physical life, so the former destroys moral life. 

This view is well fitted for the practical-rhetorical treat- 
ment of the subject. Indeed, Kant is often an admirable 
moral preacher. But it is the business of moral philosophy 
to discover the objective ground of morality, and this we 
shall again have to seek in the effects which falsehood natur- 
ally tends to have upon the conduct of human life. They are 
not hard to find. Falsehood directly injures the deceived 
party in so far as false ideas lead to false acts. As a rule, 
this is the purpose of the lie : the deceiver, the flatterer, the 
slanderer, wishes to gain some advantage over another by 
deception. Thus falsehood is a means* of injustice, and there- 
fore shares in the judgment pronounced upon the latter. 
But falsehood has a specific effect besides. So far as it can, 
it destroys faith and confidence among men, and consequently 
undermines human social life, the foundation of all real human, 
of all mental-historical life. And this explains its particular 
reprehensibleness. We may illustrate the influence of false- 



VERACITY 667 

hood by counterfeiting. The counterfeiter damages not only 
the individual upon whom he palms off the spurious coin and 
who cannot pass it; he also injures society, by destroying 
public confidence in all money : the existence of spurious coin 
brings the good money into disrepute. Should spurious coins 
become so numerous as to make it necessary to test every 
piece before accepting it, this would be equivalent to the 
abolition of money as such, for its purpose is to relieve the 
individual of the necessity of testing its value. Lying has the 
same effect. It falsifies the intellectual medium of exchange, 
so to speak. Lies invalidate the truth, and the outcome is 
universal distrust and isolation. The parties immediately 
concerned are directly affected. The deceived person first 
becomes distrustful of the liar, and, in case he has been 
deceived by many, of all human beings in general, and sep- 
arates himself from them. The liar fares similarly. He is 
isolated from his surroundings, first, owing to the distrust of 
those whom he deceives, which hardly ever fails to appear ; 
for one lie may pass undiscovered, but habitual falsehood can- 
not remain concealed, if for no other reason than that it lies 
in the very nature of untruths to contradict each other, 
whereas consistency is peculiar to truth. When the liar 
loses the confidence of others, he also loses confidence in 
them : it is psychologically necessary for the man who lies 
to expect others to do the same. There can be no doubt that 
this dual distrust is not a favorable condition of life : like a 
poisoned stratum of air it envelops a life and excludes it from 
fellowship with human beings ; the honest and sincere men, 
especially, are repelled, for they cannot breathe an atmosphere 
of falsehood and distrust. 

The corroding and poisonous character of falsehood becomes 
most apparent when it invades permanent social relations, 
family-life, friendship, education. A pupil lies to his teacher. 
Some misdemeanor has been committed in the class, the 
guilty party lies out of it, as the saying is. The result is 



668 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

mutual distrust. The teacher begins to hold himself alool 
from his pupils, the frank relations between him and them are 
at an end, he begins to observe them stealthily, to spy upon 
them. The pupils notice it ; they begin to make concealment ; 
confidence and openness, the conditions of a happy relation 
between teacher and student, are gone. When occurrences of 
this kind become frequent, something of the prison atmosphere 
pervades the school, which chokes the good and the pure. 
Hence, nothing is more important than to preserve the spirit 
of truth and confidence within its walls. This, however, can 
be kept alive only where the spirit of freedom dwells. 

Hence it follows from the very nature of falsehood that it 
poisons speech, undermines confidence, destroys collective life, 
and so attacks the very fibres of human existence. I cannot 
deny myself the pleasure of quoting a beautiful passage from 
Luther's commentary on the Psalms which I find in Herder's 
Letters for the Promotion of Humanity : " It seems to me 
that there is no more pernicious vice on earth than falsehood 
and faithlessness, which divide all human societies. For 
falsehood and faithlessness first divide hearts; when hearts 
are divided, hands also separate, and when hands separate, 
what can we do or accomplish ? We Germans still have a 
spark — may God keep it alive and strengthen it — of the old 
virtue : we are still a little ashamed of ourselves and do not 
like to be called liars ; we do not laugh about it as do the 
French and the Greeks, or make a jest of it. And although 
French and Greek vices are making inroads among us, 
nevertheless we have retained so much of the old spirit that 
no one can utter or hear a more severe and abusive epithet 
than that of liar." 

Another factor helps to make the lie still more reprehen- 
sible ; it is a sign of cowardice. It steals upon its victim, 
instead of vanquishing him in open battle. A brave man 
will not lie. The accusation of falsehood always carries 
with it the charge of cowardice, hence it wounds a man 



VERACITY 669 

more deeply than almost any other charge. You lie, means 
at the same time : You are a cowardly knave. 

3. Everything that makes the lie despicable and base is 
included in calumny. We might rhetorically define it as the 
murderous attack of the assassin upon the ideal self of an- 
other. In Othello, Shakespeare portrays the natural history 
of calumny with awful faithfulness and cruelty. Iago stran- 
gles the innocent wife with the hands of her husband. Had 
Iago killed Desdemona with his own hand and robbed her as 
a pirate, he would have been an honest man beside the real 
Iago. The fact that he cannot even be called to account be- 
fore a human judge makes the matter all the worse — for 
what did he do but act in good faith in calling Othello's 
attention to the dangers threatening his honor; well who 
never made a mistake ? 

Moreover, we must not forget that two persons are always 
necessary to make a slander possible. Just as the thief needs 
the receiver of stolen goods, the calumniator needs a person 
to accept his words and to put them in circulation. And 
just as stealing would be impossible on the large scale with- 
out receivers of stolen goods, the business of calumny would 
be impossible if there were not so many to delight in it and 
encourage it. In a letter written during the period of his 
banishment (1811) Freiherr von Stein bitterly reproaches 
this base tendency of human nature. " When once a man is 
marked as the victim of slander, his past life, his established 
character, the probability of the truth of the accusation, are 
not taken into account; the question simply is whether 
the charge will answer the intended purpose. In a short 
time the calumny is circulated everywhere; it triumphs, 
the enemies of the victim are active, the great multitude 
maliciously credulous, his friends pretending to be impartial 
are base ; they are silent, where they ought to take a firm 
stand. Finally one after the other goes over to the opposite 
party from pure love of virtue, from a sense of duty, and 



670 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

delicacy of feeling. All passions which he has insulted, all 
presumptuousness which he has wounded, now revive; all 
wish to celebrate the day of revenge and to feast on the fat 
of the victim. " 2 

Another modified form of the lie is flattery. It is so re- 
pulsive because it creeps in under the guise of friendship to 
defraud its victim. However, here again two people are 
necessary : one to do the flattering and one who allows him- 
self to be flattered. As a plaster draws blisters, so self- 
conceit provokes flattery. Hypocrisy is a form of flattery. 
Religious hypocrisy used to be common: we may define it as 
an attempt by the exact fulfilment of the ceremonies of the 
church to insinuate oneself into the good graces of God and 
to draw His attention from less agreeable phases of one's life. 
Religious hypocrisy has well-nigh died out in our world, at 
least among the Protestants ; nowadays it appears solely as a 
part of political hypocrisy, which tries to insinuate itself 
into the graces of earthly rulers. With shrewd zeal the 
hypocrite enters into the views, inclinations, and tastes of 
great or little lords, particularly into their ecclesiastical and 
religious opinions, and seeks and gains favor thereby. 
Nothing flatters a human being more than to be an authority ; 
authority, however, must be acknowledged by imitation. 

The effect of hypocrisy is the same as that of all lying: as 
forgery makes us suspect the genuine, hypocrisy brings re- 
ligion into hatred and contempt. Hence all truly religious 
natures hate hypocrisy, and all sincere persons hate assumed 
" orthodoxy " like death. 

Falsehood raised to the highest power is perjury. It is the 
lie accompanied by the formal and solemn assurance that it 
is the truth. Perjury has everywhere and always been re- 
garded as one of the greatest crimes, as a sign of extreme 
viciousness and baseness. We can defend ourselves against 
violence by violence, strategy we meet with strategy : these 

1 Pertz, Stein's Leben, I., 449. 



VERACITY 671 

are the means of war, which may be followed by an honor- 
able peace after the matter has been fought out. But perjury 
cuts off all possibility of a return of friendship. There is 
no defence, no weapon against perjury ; helplessly and with 
a feeling of horror man appeals to the gods, when he has been 
deceived by perjury, to punish such an enormous crime. L. 
Schmidt 1 calls our attention to the fact that the Iliad, con- 
trary to its leading ideas, does not regard death as the final 
punishment of perjury ; fidelity to oaths is universally looked 
upon by the Greeks as the most essential and, in a measure, 
most elementary part of justice, perjury as the most heinous 
crime. 

The necessity of absolutely proving evidence before court 
has led to the preservation of the oath in our judicial prac- 
tice. The legal prosecution of organized bands of perjurers 
every now and then shows beyond a doubt that with the 
weakening of the transcendent sanction the oath has lost 
some of its efficacy and has become a dreadfully dangerous 
weapon in the hands of unscrupulous men. This state of 
affairs evidently suggests the advisability of abolishing the 
oath from legal practice, a useless survival. At all events, 
it demands that the greatest care be taken in employing it. 
We must particularly restrict the right of doubtful char- 
acters to make oath by imposing severe punishments for its 
violation. And can we justify the practice of forcing the 
oath ? 2 

1 Ethih der Griechen, II., 3 ff. 

2 An able judge, von Valentini, Das Verbrechertum in Preussen, p. 112, ex- 
presses the opinion that the administration of the oath by the courts, its employ- 
ment as a " technical requisite," greatly encourages perjury. Indeed, how, in 
view of the fact that forty to fifty oaths are administered at a single session of a 
sheriff's court, mostly in farcical and trivial cases, can the oath preserve its es- 
pecially sacred character ? The ceremony with which the thing is surrounded 
almost makes matters worse. Besides this, the judges are by no means obliged 
to regard the sworn testimony as worthy of belief, and do not regard it as such : 
it really makes an extremely painful impression upon one, when the judge, after 
having just sworn a witness, straightway admonishes him, not always in the 
gentlest manner, to keep to the truth. We are similarly impressed by the attitude 



672 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

4. The Lie of Necessity. A problem that has given the 
moralists the greatest trouble is the lie of necessity. Is 
deception under all circumstances morally wrong, or can 
conditions arise under which it is permissible or even 
morally necessary ? 

In our actual judgments and actions we experience no diffi- 
culty in answering this question; everybody acknowledges 
the possibility of the " necessary lie. " There is not a phy- 
sician in the whole world who does not at times give decep- 
tive answers to the questions of his patients, who does not 
arouse hopes which he does not share. He does not reproach 
himself for doing so, neither do others blame him. Indeed, 
everybody does the same thing under similar circumstances. 
Suppose that, without knowing it, a man should be in an 
extremely dangerous position and that his rescue depended 
upon his being deceived for a minute, would any one in the 
slightest hesitate to encourage him in his delusion ? The 
newspapers recently reported a case analogous to this. Fire 
broke out during a performance in a theatre at Zurich. 
When the stage manager discovered it, he appeared before 

of the tax-officials with respect to the " self-assessment " : after the person has 
made his returns, certifying that they are true, " according to his best knowl- 
edge and belief," he is informed that the authorities are inclined not to believe his 
statements, but merely regard them as valuable material for further investigations. 
If this is not an invitation to withhold returns, not to say to ignore the " to the 
best knowledge and belief " clause in the assessment-blank, I know nothing of 
psychology. Is not what the authorities presuppose permissible? — Many of 
the so-called promissory oaths also tend to make persons careless in swearing 
oaths. Think of the academic oaths. The medical doctor's oath, which is cus- 
tomary in Berlin, begins : " I, John Doe, swear that I will not practise medicine 
for the sake of personal gain, but for the glory of God, for the welfare of man, 
and for the promotion of scientific knowledge" etc. But this is evidently a 
survival protected by the Latin language : the thing would be impossible in Ger- 
man. — Is it not possible that the prohibition against swearing in the Gospel is 
chiefly aimed at promissory oaths ? The reasons given seem to indicate it : You 
are not master of things, and of the future, you cannot make one hair white or 
black ; and yet you will sell your soul by an oath and bind yourself to do certain 
things. With what ease the church evades this explicit prohibition against 
swearing, and how tenaciously she adheres to the law of the Sabbath, in spite of 
Its abolition ! 



VERACITY 673 

the scenes and announced that, owing to the sudden illness 
of an actor, the performance would have to be suspended. 
The theatre was emptied without any trouble, and then 
burned to the ground. Will any one dare to condemn this 
happy idea as a lie ? And it is not even necessary that the 
deception be in the interest of the person deceived. It may 
also be practised in one's own interest, without the slightest 
hesitation, and meet with universal approval. An old woman 
is at home alone ; a couple of tramps break into her house ; 
she has presence of mind enough to call out the name of 
her husband, thereby deceiving the burglars. She will not 
herself suffer remorse for her behavior, nor will any one 
else reproach her for it. Nay, even the tramps themselves 
would not be so rigoristic as to blame her. The story is told 
that Columbus entered a smaller number of miles in the 
log-book during his first voyage of discovery than he actually 
traversed each day, in order to make the distance from home 
seem shorter to his timid crew. Will any one condemn the 
brave sailor's strategy as a moral fault ? 

Only among moral philosophers do we still find persons 
who regard the matter as serious. Kant declares: False- 
hood, that is, intentional untruthfulness, is under all cir- 
cumstances, "by its mere form, a crime of man against his 
own person, and a baseness which must make a man despi- 
cable in his own eyes." 1 When a man misdirects a mur- 
derer in search of his victim, and dexterously turns him 
into the hands of the police, we cannot excuse him: he has 
told a lie, and has therefore forfeited his dignity as a man. 
And Fichte once said, with his usual rhetorical fanaticism, 
"I would not break my word even to save humanity." 2 
Let us apply this principle in practice. Suppose that I had 
promised some one to call for him at five o'clock for a 
walk, and that on my way to his house I saw a child fall 
[nto the river. If I followed Fichte, I should say to myself: 

1 Tugendlehre, § 9. a Life, IL, 57. 



674 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

" If you pull it out, you will have to go home and change your 
clothes, which will make it impossible for you to keep your 
engagement; hence you must hurry on, sorry though you 
may be. " Or would it be right for me to assume that my 
friend would give his consent in such a case, and, acting on 
this belief, to break my engagement ? But suppose I could 
not assume that he would consent. I have made a promise; 
now I see what I could not have known before, or what is 
simply the result of new conditions; a third party, or I 
myself, might be seriously damaged by fulfilling the prom- 
ise. I beg to be released from my word, I am willing to 
pay any amount of indemnity; in vain. May I break my 
word ? Under no circumstances. I should have to say, 
according to Fichte's view: Let the world perish, that is 
not my concern; but it is my concern not to destroy my 
moral dignity as a human being by a lie! — Other moralists 
are somewhat more yielding, or have not the courage to 
draw the consequences of their views. Thus Martensen 
holds in his Theological Ethics : l Lies of necessity are, 
under certain circumstances, permitted on account of the 
weakness of human nature; but it must be confessed that 
" there is some sin in every such falsehood ; " a conclusion 
which surely is not in accord with the words of the Gospel; 
"Let your communication be yea, yea, nay, nay." 

Practice not only contradicts the theory here, but is even 
theoretically correct in its opposition to these theorists. It 
may be that the lie of necessity does not fit into the system of 
a moralist, but that merely proves the inability of his system 
to comprehend moral things. A teleological ethics finds no 
difficulty in explaining the phenomenon in question. 

Intentional deception is objectively reprehensible, as was 
shown above, because it tends to destroy confidence, and thus 
to lead to the disintegration of the social organism. In 
cases where this effect cannot possibly occur, owing to the 

l II, 264. 



VERACITY 675 

very nature of things, it is not reprehensible. Let us take 
an example. No relation of confidence can be destroyed by 
deceiving a burglar, because absolutely none exists, neither 
a special relation, nor a universally-human one. In so far 
and so long as such lawbreakers follow their calling, they 
stand outside of the pale of confidence, and thereby forfeit 
all claims to the truth, nor will they expect to receive it. 

The case is somewhat similar in war. No soldier has ever 
scrupled against deceiving the enemy as to his own plans, 
tactics, or numbers. Strategy is one of the arts of war; it 
would be absurd to show your hand in war. It is said that 
the most honest man cheats in a horse-trade ; it is one of the 
rules of the game to keep your eyes open. The etymological 
relation between the words tausehen (to exchange) and 
tdusehen (to deceive) seems to indicate that these rules are 
also applied to other branches of commerce. Well, decep- 
tion is likewise one of the rules of war : everybody practises 
it and expects the enemy to do the same. The rules, how- 
ever, apply only to the game. Whenever in war an individ- 
ual comes in contact with another individual not as a foe 
but as a human being, then the universal rule of human in- 
tercourse again demands its rights. The same is true when- 
ever the game of war is temporarily suspended by mutual 
agreement : to break an armistice, to ambush the bearer of 
a flag of truce, is disgraceful and dishonorable. 

The case is peculiar in diplomacy. In a certain sense 
the rules of war seem to hold here : Keep your eyes open J 
No one shows his hand, and everybody will, to say the least, 
regard it as legitimate not to " disillusionize " a fellow- 
player under certain circumstances, nay, perhaps even to 
encourage him a little in his false belief. This is apparently 
because it is tacitly assumed in international intercourse 
that every state will be solely and unconditionally guided in 
its dealings with others by the regard for its own vital in- 
terests; that it will, so far as it can safely do so, assert 



676 DOCTRTNE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

these even at the expense of other nations. There is no law 
governing the intercourse of states which can secure them 
against encroachments; there is no power which can medi- 
ate between them or call the breaker of the peace to account. 
Hence a constant potential state of war exists between states. 
The rules of diplomatic intercourse show that in so far as 
war, in which force and strategy are absolutely permitted, 
is possible at any moment, the parties are reticent and 
distrustful of each other; they conceal their measures and 
agreements, their plans and intentions. But in so far as 
the real object of diplomacy is to maintain peace, to settle 
by negotiations what would otherwise have to be settled by 
the arbitrament of war, a certain measure of mutual confi- 
dence is required. If diplomats needed language merely to 
conceal their thoughts, it would evidently be wiser for 
nations not to speak to each other at all. — Besides, there 
seems to be the same tendency here as in commerce. At- 
tempts are being made in the latter field gradually to stamp 
out fraud, at least the coarser phases of it, as an unsuitable 
form of intercourse. So, too, in the diplomatic intercourse 
of nations : the closer they are drawing to each other, the 
more intimate their relations are becoming, the more the 
conviction seems to be growing that the straight course is 
better than the crooked course in the long run. And per- 
haps we may see in this an evidence that the European 
nations are approaching a condition of permanent peace, 
remote though it may seem at present. For evidently 
the probability of war and the measure of openness in 
diplomatic intercourse are in inverse proportion to each 
other. 

Hence, the fewer the relations t of trust which can be dis- 
turbed, the more of its dangerous and objectionable character 
intentional deception loses, and the more openly it is actually 
practised, until it ultimately appears as an altogether legiti- 
mate means of warfare in the actual state of war. Where 



VERACITY 677 

all ties are broken, where even the killing of others is de- 
sired, it can do no more harm; things are so bad that decep- 
tion will not make them worse. 

Another case which may make intentional deception per- 
missible or necessary is the inability of the other party to 
understand or to bear the truth. It may, for example, under 
circumstances, have a quieting effect upon insane persons to 
enter into their delusions. It is also necessary to accom- 
modate oneself to the weakminded. This is true of old 
people who have grown weak-minded; they have lost the 
faculty of seeing and judging things in their true relations, 
but not the faculty of becoming excited by occasionally mis- 
interpreting them. We are compelled, for example, to make 
certain arrangements, contrary to the wishes of our old 
parents. Is it right to conceal our plans, or to deny them ? 
It is a hard thing to do ; it seems like a breach of old confi- 
dential relations. And yet every one will at times decide 
to pursue such a course, and justly so, for what good would 
it do to tell them ? We could not make them see the neces- 
sity of our action; the information would therefore simply 
grieve them, while the deception, if not detected, would be 
harmless. The case is different in our intercourse with 
children ; and here we are often too ready to have recourse to 
the most convenient form of deception that happens to pres- 
ent itself. The deception persists in memory; when the 
intelligence develops and recognizes it as such, it may after- 
wards seriously undermine the child's faith. Besides, an- 
other means of escape is always at hand ; we can refuse to 
answer the child's questions by saying, " You do not under- 
stand these things yet," or, " They do not concern you." It 
would, however, be wholly impossible to treat old people in 
this way, even if it were proper. Here, then, we must 
make use of language, as the physician occasionally pre- 
scribes a pretended remedy, simply in order to quiet the 
patient. 



678 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

But, some one might ask in troubled tones, Where, then, 
shall we draw the line ? The transition to childish old age 
is a gradual one. Where may one begin to deceive ? And 
if I may deceive a weak-minded person, then why not a stupid 
blockhead ? And where shall this end ? And who is to 
decide how to classify the individuals in question ? Only 
one answer can be made to such questions. Suoh fixed 
boundaries do not exist in morals. The law draws hard and 
fast, and therefore arbitrary, lines, while morality has every- 
where to do with gradual transitions. The particular case 
must necessarily be decided by the individual's own insight 
and conscience, and with a view to the concrete conditions. 
Morality cannot give him a scheme which shall enable him 
to settle the matter with mechanical certainty. It can 
merely indicate the general points of view from which the 
decision is to be rendered. 

The case is not essentially different for the physician in 
his intercourse with patients. Here, too, we have a rela- 
tion of trust, and deception is not without its dangers. 
Perhaps we are all a little incredulous in reference to what 
the physician says, both when he tries to quiet us and 
when he warns us. He does it, we believe, simply for 
effect. Nevertheless, we cannot expect absolute openness 
from the physician in every case. If, in order to assist his 
art, he skilfully and quietly deceives the patient and his 
friends as to the magnitude of the danger, he does not de- 
serve blame but praise. It is a part of his art to keep up 
courage and hope ; to that end he also makes use of speech, 
even at the risk of subsequently disappointing the patient 
and of weakening the latter's faith in his word as well as in 
the word of physicians in general. It was shown above 2 that 
the violation of formal right is under all circumstances an 
evil, but that it may become permissible or necessary in 
order to ward off a greater evil from oneself or others. The 

1 Pp. 630 ff . 



VERACITY 679 

same is true here. The lie of necessity, like the law of 
necessity, may become a moral duty, — a duty which even 
the most truthful man cannot always evade, however wil- 
ling he may be to forfeit his right to deceive. Confidence 
in human speech is a great good, but it is not the only good 
thing in the world. 

Everybody meets with similar cases in life. A man has 
had some trouble ; he has been undeservedly abused ; a crisis 
threatens to overtake his business. He comes home, deter- 
mined not to say anything about the matter. But he looks 
pale ; his family ask him, what has happened ? Is it right 
to say, " Nothing, it is warm, I have a headache ? " I believe 
the conditions may be such that no one would hesitate to 
practise deception here. The man in our example does not 
like to tell the truth, he does not wish his friends at home 
to hear anything about the matter ; why should they worry 
over it ? To evade their questions may be worse than to tell 
the truth. — Here, too, relations of confidence exist, and 
deception is not without danger. In case they should hear 
of his troubles from others who will not spare their feelings, 
they may not only be more greatly disturbed, but their con- 
fidence may receive a serious shock. And yet a man 
may make up his mind to add dissimulation to intentional 
deception. 

Or, is dissimulation absolutely wrong, according to these 
" rigorous " moralists ? That it belongs to the category of 
deception cannot be denied. When a man with his heart 
full of care and bitterness seems cheerful and calm in the 
circle of his family, so that no one notices it, he has cer- 
tainly deceived them in the most complete manner possible. 
Is that not allowed either ? Has he no right to look cheerful 
when he is inwardly sad, or calm when he is in trouble ? Is 
this, too, an abandonment of his dignity as a man ? These 
moral philosophers should have made clear to themselves the 
consequences of their assertion. Or is it possible only to 



680 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

deceive by means of the tongue and not with the eyes and 
face ? Or ought we always to show everything we feel ? 
Ought I then to tell a friend who has an unfortunate leaning 
to art, when he presents me with a picture as a birthday 
gift : " My dear friend, your intentions are undoubtedly good, 
but I wish you would spare me ? " Or shall I declare, when 
he expects me to say something about the present : " Unfortu- 
nately, I cannot tell you anything, for if I told you the truth, 
you would be angry, but if I didn't tell the truth, this would 
be contrary to the moral law ? " Of course, it may be my duty 
to say to my friend frankly and distinctly, in case his hobby 
is making him ridiculous, or is causing him to neglect his 
duties : " Stop it, you will never accomplish anything, and you 
are simply hurting yourself." The good-natured praise of 
questionable achievements may grow into base flattery. But 
all this will not shake any one but an extremist in the belief 
that it may, under circumstances, be right and proper to tell 
a man what will give him harmless pleasure, even though 
this does not express one's real opinion, instead of telling 
him things which it will neither please him nor benefit him 
to hear. 

To the same category belong the conventional half-truths 
and untruths of social intercourse. We welcome a visitor 
who comes at an inopportune time; at the end of a letter 
we assure a man whom we do not know, or whom we look 
upon as a thorough villain, of our high esteem. The neces- 
sity and justification for this lies in the fact that smooth 
and peaceful intercourse is not possible among men as they 
are constituted, without the exercise of some constraint. 
The customary politeness is the oil which prevents, so far as 
possible, the creaking and pulling of the machine. The 
angels in heaven do not need it. Where there are no inner 
discords and outer obstacles, perfect openness is possible; 
human beings as they are constituted cannot endure it. It 
is for this reason that Goethe delicately and truthfully says; 



VERACITY 681 

Fragst du nach der Kunst zu leben ? 
Lern* mit Narr und Bosem leben. 
Mit den Weisen, mit den Guten, 
Wird es sich von selbst ergeben. 1 

Of course, where is the boundary between necessary polite- 
ness and repulsive flattery and falsehood ? No system of 
morals can draw the line: moral tact alone must decide. 
And the thing is not without its dangers. A person who 
lives much in society easily forms the habit of lying, his 
conscience gradually becomes seared, it becomes a second 
nature and finally a necessity for him to lie. We are there- 
fore ready to suspect a man who exhibits great skill in the art 
of polite speech. We are more apt to trust one who is somewhat 
awkward and backward in speaking conventional untruths. 

Hence our conclusion would be : Be truthful ; this holds 
unconditionally; but Speak the truth does not hold uncon- 
ditionally. 

5. How shall we account for this strange " rigorism " of 
the moralists, which is everywhere contradicted by life ? 
Are they perhaps influenced by the curious notion that the 
"stricter" their systems, the better it will be for the moral- 
ity of mankind ? It almost seems so. If our moral systems, 
they seem to think, leave the smallest loophole for falsehood, 
man's inclination to lie will gradually enlarge it, and he 
will always find an excuse for not speaking the truth. In 
case, however, these systems absolutely prohibit falsehood, 
and threaten it with the most awful punishments, — loss of 
human dignity and self-respect, — then he will be on his 
guard. As though men always first referred to a handbook 
of morals before opening their mouths ! 

1 These lines, by the way, might be taken as the translation of a passage in 
the Imitation of Christ : " It is no great matter to associate with the good and 
gentle; for this is naturally pleasing to all, and every one willingly enjoyeth 
peace, and loveth those best that agree with him. But to be able to live peace- 
ably with hard and perverse persons, or with the disorderly, or with such as go 
contrary to us, is a great grace, and a most commendable and manly thing.* 

in, 3.) 



682 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

But perhaps this rigorism has still another ground. Jt is 
surprising that we do not find it among the Greek moral 
philosophers. Intentional deception is not only permitted 
by them under certain circumstances, but even demanded. 
According to Plato, the authorities in the ideal State must 
employ deception as a means of the welfare of the gov- 
erned. Socrates and the Stoics are of the same opinion. Is 
our sense of truth more finely developed than theirs? Are 
we so much superior to them in veracity ? In my opinion, 
the matter might be explained differently. I have repeat- 
edly referred to the fact that; we, to quote Lessing, speak 
most of the virtues which we least possess, and also, that 
we condemn those vices most to which we are most inclined. 
The Greek philosophers — Schopenhauer is right in this — 
exhibit a measure of openness and straightforwardness in the 
presentation of their thoughts which we seldom find in the 
philosophical literature of modern times. Among the mod- 
erns there is a tendency to compromise and extemporize, to 
accommodation, to weaken the logical consequences of views, 
to embellishment, to ambiguity, to intentional obscurity, 
which contrasts unfavorably with the openness and transpar- 
ency of the ancients. Kant once confessed that though he 
would never say anything he did not believe, he believed 
many things which he would never say. A Greek might 
have replied to him : In that case I do not care very much 
for what you have to say, for I desire to know not what 
you are allowed to think with the consent of the high author- 
ities, but what you actually think yourself ! 

We can hardly doubt that church affairs have something 
to do with this attitude. Intellectual veracity, sincerity in 
matters of thought and faith, consistency in thinking, is not 
one of the virtues encouraged by the church. Primitive 
Christianity had nothing whatever in common with theoreti- 
cal knowledge ; although it practically demanded veracity of 
the highest kind, that is, martyrdom. When the church 



VERACITY 683 

became triumphant, and it was no longer the confession of 
the creed but non-conformity to it that entailed martyrdom, 
and when the faith was reduced to a kind of scientific sys- 
tem in theology, the spirit of humility and obedience, which 
the church and Christianity both fostered, stifled the theoret- 
ical love of truth : the spirit of obedience which the individual 
manifested towards the church and the authorities in his whole 
mode of life characterized his entire philosophy. L. Wiese 
states in his Autobiography that he has frequently observed 
a certain lack of openness in his intercourse with educated 
Catholics, even among persons who are otherwise honest and 
upright. This lack of openness may be found not only among 
Catholics, but also among Protestants, although the fact that 
the individual is freer in his relations to the church and the 
doctrines of the church may perhaps lessen the fault in the 
latter case. It is an historically necessary effect of church 
life as such, in so far as the demand that we submit to the 
church law and the creed follows inevitably from the nature 
of the church. So long as authoritative doctrines concerning 
all things in heaven and earth are formed and adhered to 
on the one side, and scientific and historical research con- 
tinue to develop new conceptions of things on the other, the 
conflict will be inevitable. Under such conditions the aver- 
age nature strives, for the most part, to move on the diagonal 
between the creed and knowledge. Historical faith and new 
insight simultaneously influence the mind and urge it, in 
accordance with the law of the parallelogram of forces, in 
the median direction. Examine the commentaries on the 
Gospels or the Lives of Christ: the impulse to save what 
can be saved of the old time-honored conceptions and inter- 
pretations, and, on the other hand, to concede as much to 
scientific research as must be conceded in order that one 
may be regarded as an enlightened and progressive man, 
determines their content. Or think of the attempts which 
have been made to read into Genesis the conceptions of mod- 



684 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

era geology. It is to be presumed that Darwinism will be 
discovered there before very long. 

This perversion of the intellect is not necessarily accom- 
panied by a perversion of the will ; a frank and honest heart 
may exist side by side with these diagonal tendencies of the 
intellect. A man may hesitate to depart from the faith of 
the church, without being necessarily inspired by the fear of 
man and the desire to get along in the world. Still it cannot 
be denied that the lack of a theoretical love of truth, the 
tendency to accommodation, is often connected with quite 
worldly considerations and intentions. When Kepler lost 
his position and his income at Prague, after the downfall 
of Rudolph's Empire, there was a prospect of his being 
called to a professorship in his home university at Tubingen. 
The place was in all respects a desirable one; but he 
felt himself obliged, as an honest man, first to inform the 
Duke that his views on the doctrine of transubstantiation 
were not quite orthodox, that he had not been able to con- 
vince himself of the ubiquity of the body of Christ. Well, 
Kepler was not called. His biographer Reuschle adds, in 
reporting this episode, that Kepler belonged to that class of 
honest men, to be one of whom, as Hamlet says, is to be one 
man picked out of ten thousand. Indeed, no one will claim 
that Kepler represents the modern type of scholar in this 
respect Leibniz would be a more fitting example. He was 
never in want of a system of thought to show the similarity 
between his thinking and that of some other person, were it 
an atheistic philosopher or a church believer, a Protestant 
or a Jesuit, an advocate of imperial unity or of the sover- 
eignty of the princes in Germany. 

With this status of affairs, it seems to me, the inclination to 
inveigh against falsehood and to stigmatize deception as 
absolutely reprehensible and disgraceful, has something to do. 
We feel the need, in the face of our constant danger, of em- 
phasizing to ourselves and to others, often in the strongest 



VERACITY 685 

terms, the value of truthfulness and the disgrace of lying and 
of trifling with the truth. The Greek philosophers did not 
feel this need so much, because they were less exposed to 
temptation. Schopenhauer, whose proud, harsh, and incon- 
siderate temperament protected him against the tendency to 
accommodation, occasionally accuses Kant of affectation on 
account of his violent repudiation of every form of deception. 
Others are of different opinion ; they admire Kant's system 
precisely because of the harsh rigor of its formulae of duty, 
which exclude all exceptions. They also praise Luther as a 
hero of truth, and heap all kinds of abuse upon Erasmus on 
account of his tendency to accommodation and conciliation. 
Will the initiated conclude from this that the tribe of 
Erasmus has died out, and that our theologians and histori- 
ans are all little Luthers ? 

6. We now turn to the positive side of veracity. It corre- 
sponds to love of neighbor, and is expressed in the formula 
of duty : Serve thy neighbor with the truth. Since the con- 
duct of man is, to a considerable extent, dependent upon 
ideas, true ideas are of prime importance to his welfare. 
The universal duty of love of neighbor, therefore, include*: 
the duty to assist one's neighbor in ridding himself of false 
ideas and of acquiring true ones. 

This phase of the question has been too much neglected by 
moralists, a fact which accounts for their meagre treatment 
of veracity and also explains their inability to do justice to 
the lie of necessity. Whoever lives a life of truth in the 
main, will have no trouble in settling the question of decep- 
tion, whenever it may become necessary or expedient. But 
the person whose truthfulness consists solely in refraining 
from telling lies, will be afraid of totally destroying his repu- 
tation in case he should ever happen to say what is not true. 
Such purely negative veracity is, of course, a rather paltry 
thing; it easily degenerates into the mere art of avoiding 
direct falsehood. Had the disciples of Christ, after the 



686 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

death of the Master, merely refused to deny Him directly, 
had they returned to their former callings, and, obeying the 
commands of the authorities and the dictates of prudence, 
locked up the memories of the past in their own hearts, had 
they in pursuance of the maxim that it is not our duty to say 
everything we believe, carefully evaded every discussion of 
their experiences, they certainly could have escaped the re- 
proach of falsehood, but they would surely never have become 
what they now are : witnesses of the truth, whose testimony 
is shaping the destiny of the centuries. 

Positive veracity, which first gives to negative veracity 
its real meaning and value, manifests itself, first, in the 
personal intercourse with individuals, where it assumes the 
form of advice, instruction, admonition, and correction ; sec- 
ondly, in the public communication of the truth, where it takes 
the form of research, teaching, and preaching. 

According to the first form, it is my duty to help the indi- 
vidual whom I find in search of the right path, or following 
the wrong path, according to my better lights. This duty, 
too, must be qualified. Just as the duty of love of neighbor 
cannot mean that every one is constantly to offer his aid to 
everybody he meets, the duty of veracity cannot mean that 
we are at all times obliged to instruct and advise people, to 
admonish and set them right. In addition to the limitations 
placed upon this duty by the same considerations which were 
indicated above in respect to love of neighbor in general, we 
must take into account other special features depending upon 
the special nature of this kind of charity. 

The duty to instruct and set right presupposes two things : 
first, that I am myself sure of the right path ; secondly, that 
the interested party is inclined to profit by my advice. We 
are essentially governed by these considerations in our ac- 
tual practice. I see a stranger in the mountains turning 
into a road that leads nowhere; I do not hesitate to call to 
him and to direct him. When, on the other hand, 1 find 



VERACITY 687 

a person on the point of embarking upon a mercantile or 
literary venture, which I regard as sure to fail, I seriously 
deliberate before advising him. If the man is a stranger to 
me, I let him alone. I do not know enough of his situation, 
his powers, his resources, to know what he can do; nor can 
I assume that he has confidence enough in my judgment to 
accept my advice : perhaps it would simply confuse him or 
anger him. I therefore, at least, wait until I am asked, 
and even then it will often be doubtful whether 1 ought 
to give the desired information. There are people who ask 
others' advice and then do as they please, simply in order 
to shift the blame upon them in case of failure, whether 
they have advised for or against the project. Whenever 
these difficulties are not in the way I shall be more inclined 
to communicate my views of the matter. The better 1 know 
the person and the circumstances, and the more interest I 
take in his welfare because of my particular relations to 
him, the more willing I shall be to advise him. 

The ability to judge where and when it is proper to aid 
others with advice and instruction, may be called discre- 
tion. The opposite, indiscretion, the inability to keep from 
advising and instructing people, is a quality that will make 
a person disliked by his fellows sooner than anything else, 
especially when it appears in young men. It is particularly 
necessary for one to be on one's guard when it comes to rep- 
rimanding or blaming people. Uncalled-for blame angers a 
man and strengthens him in his perverseness. The habit of 
finding fault and speaking evil is a real vice. Here the pur- 
pose is not to serve the neighbor with the truth, but to flat- 
ter one's self-love and vanity. The Gospel does not warn 
us so earnestly against fault-finding for nothing. Insinuat- 
ing itself into our hearts in the guise of sincerity and love of 
truth, this habit becomes a soul-destroying vice. It extin- 
guishes brotherly love : we naturally hate a man whom we 
have wronged, even though it be in secret. It leads to 



688 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

flattery and falsehood : we try to make the interested person 
believe that we will not pronounce a similar judgment upon 
him when his back is turned. It prevents us from being 
true to ourselves: the man who is always beholding the 
mote that is in his brother's eye, at last cannot see the beam 
that is in his own eye. Hence the rule is: Speak of evil 
only when the good is promoted thereby; and, for the rest, 
turn all things to good. 1 

7. The other phase of the problem, the public communica- 
tion of the truth, demands a somewhat more elaborate 
treatment. 

To know the truth as a whole, as contained in philosophy 
and science, is not a function of the individual mind as such ; 
a people, or, in the last analysis, humanity, is the bearer of 
the truth, the individual shares in it as the member of a 
people. The little fraction which he possesses, he possesses 
as the heir of the past; he thinks with the logical and 
metaphysical categories which the popular mind has devel- 
oped in the course of thousands of years, and has incor- 
porated into grammatical forms. He sees things through 
the ideas and notions which his age places at his dis- 
posal, he labors upon the solution of the problems which it 
suggests to him. On the other hand, it is no less true that 

1 In Wackernagel's Treasury of German Poetry/ and Wisdom (Edelsteine 
deutscher Dichtung und Weisheit), vol. XIII., is found a sermon of Brother 
David of Augsburg, which offers a piece of advice which we ought to take to 
heart : " Ziuch din gemiiete von allem, das dich niht anget. Laz einen jeglichen 
sin dine ahten unde sinen siten halten unde schaf du mit gote din dine. Swes 
aber dfi. maht gebezzert werden, des nim alleine war; das ander laz hin gen. 
Bekiimber din herze niht mit urteile, wan du niht wizzen kanst, umbbe welhe 
Sache oder in welhem sinne daz geschiht, daz dii urteilst ; wan als wir Hzen ofte 
missesehen einez fur daz ander, also misseraten wir ofte ein guotez fur ein 
boesez, als der schelhe, der zwei siht fiir einez und ist daran betrogen. Maht 
duz aber niht zu guote keren, dennoch bekiimber dich niht da mite. Ez ist vil 
unverrihtunge in der kristenheit, der dft aller niht verrihten maht. Lid einez 
mit dem andern. Des du niht truwest gebezzern, da iiebe din gedult an. Swa 
aber von dinem swigen iht ungevelliges wahsen mohte, daz von diner rede mac 
gebezzert werden, da sprich zuo, senfteclichen, ernstliche, ane strit, daz du dick 
da mite unschuldigest, daz duz iht teilhaftic stst, des man dich anspreche." 



VERACITY 689 

the collective mind exercises the functions only through 
individual minds as its organs. 

Here a notable difference may be observed: individuals 
do not all stand in the same relation to this function. The 
masses always participate in the truth in a rather receptive, 
passive manner, while nature chooses only a few distin- 
guished minds as bearers and increasers of knowledge. If 
we designate the latter with the old term of clergy (clems), 
which includes all spiritual leaders of the people, its inves- 
tigators and teachers, its thinkers and poets, we may say: 
The public communication of the truth is the true life-calling 
of the clerus, and veracity is the specific duty, as it were the 
professional virtue of the clericus. 

But we may again distinguish two phases in this virtue : 
we may call them sincerity and the love of truth. The 
former is the universal and elementary virtue of the clericus : 
it consists in this, that he simply and clearly, conscien- 
tiously and faithfully, employs the truth in teaching and 
preaching, in theory and in practice. It is the fundamental 
precondition of his power to do good in so far as the latter 
depends upon the confidence which the laymen have in him. 
But confidence is gained only by simplicity and sincerity of 
heart and intellect. Inquisitive love of truth, on the other 
hand, is the special duty of the true investigator and path- 
finder ; it is the passionate impulse which incites the historical 
or natural-scientific investigator to discover new facts and to 
penetrate more deeply into their relations. It is the im- 
pulse which, urging the thinker constantly to test the estab- 
lished views and theories, is forever on its guard against 
error even in the form of established opinions. It is the love 
of truth which inspires the poet and thinker who seeks to 
comprehend and express the secret meaning of life and the 
universe in new thoughts and symbols. It is the love of truth, 
finally, which impels the great leaders of mankind, the 

prophets and reformers, to discover new, untrodden paths of 

44 



690 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

life. Plus ultra, that is the watchword of these pathfinders 
of the future, who are laboring for the civilization of hu- 
manity. They are restrained by no authority, by no preju- 
dice, be it ever so sacred ; they follow the light which 
burns in their hearts. 

The love of truth finds its highest expression in martyr- 
dom. We should expect the nations to turn to their great 
leaders and pathfinders in thankful admiration. And so they 
do, but it is only after their death that mortal men are reck- 
oned among the gods. Martyrdom is the great purifier by 
which humanity tests the genuineness of new truths; it is 
the narrow portal through which heroes pass into immor- 
tality. This has been the method of humanity from times 
immemorial, and it is not hard to see the historical necessity 
of this fact, which is so surprising at first sight. 

8. Let me first try to show the psychological necessity. 

The conceptions and truths of a people become — and that 
is their true function — the ideal basis of its institutions, of 
the state and the law, of the church and the school. All 
kinds of arts and practices depend upon our views and ideas 
of the nature of things and of men, their relations to each 
other and to the universe. Originally the entire life of every 
nation and all its institutions were based upon religion. 
Every religion, however, contains a philosophy of history 
and a metaphysic, — the precipitate of all the experiences 
of a people with the world and its relations to the world. 
Hence it follows that every attempt at a radical change of 
views is regarded as a menace to the entire life ; the weaken- 
ing of the theoretical foundations will result in the shatter- 
ing of all the institutions founded upon them. And this is 
not an illusion. All great revolutions in the world of institu- 
tions had as their starting-point revolutions in the world of 
thoughts. Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in the 
most recent events of European history. The long series of 
revolutions which fill the pages of modern history are the 



VERACITY 691 

after-effects of the changes in the world of ideas which, after 
the fifteenth century, undermined the mediaeval conception of 
the universe which had been systematized in the dogmas of 
the church. The great historical and geographical, cosmical 
and physical discoveries, which were made in surprising 
numbers in the neighborhood of the sixteenth century, first 
made possible the ecclesiastical revolutions, then the eco- 
nomic and political revolutions, which since then have 
shaken Germany, England, and France, and which have not 
yet come to an end. Wherever, however, the world of 
thought remains stable, as was the case in China, the world 
of institutions persists in its old forms. 

It is for this reason that the institutions resist every at- 
tempt that may be made to change the conceptions. They 
defend tradition as the basis of their existence. We might 
imagine them arguing as follows : The welfare of a people 
depends upon the stability and trustworthiness of its in- 
stitutions. A revolution that affects any important part 
of its institutions is always a serious, nay, . a dangerous 
crisis. The stability of these, however, depends upon their 
authority, hence it cannot be permitted to question their 
theoretical foundations. Every criticism against the funda- 
mental conceptions upon which the institutions rest, under- 
mines the ground upon which the security and welfare, nay, 
the very life, of the people depend. Criticism must there- 
fore stop short of the principles which underlie the church, 
the state, and society. — Though this applies to all, it applies 
particularly to the clerus. For their function is to serve so- 
ciety by preserving and defending the truth. Things would 
be in a bad shape if any one could at any time set up his 
own notions and private opinions, and sit in judgment upon 
these fundamental truths. 

The institutions themselves are supported by the private 
interests which are intertwined with them. Institutions do 
not exist in the abstract, but in human beings, who have 



692 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

adapted their entire lives to them. In the stability of the 
educational institutions, the military institutions, the polit- 
ical and ecclesiastical systems, those are particularly and 
directly interested who are employed as teachers and officers, 
as state and church officials. I mean interested not merely 
in the vulgar sense that they and their families depend for 
their support upon the permanence of the institutions — 
which is often no longer the case in consequence of our pres- 
ent pension system — but interested especially in the ideal 
sense, for whoever denies the necessity or the value of these 
institutions, deprives these persons of the ideal basis of their 
existence ; he seems, by demanding a change of system, to 
declare that their functions and their lives are futile. A 
schoolmaster of the eighteenth century, who had reached an 
honorable old age in the practice of his profession, instructing 
the young in Latin composition, could not but have regarded 
the reforms of the innovators who repudiated these things as 
exploded errors and desired to introduce others — mathe- 
matics and natural science, German and French — as an 
abandonment of something that had been tried by experience, 
of something hallowed by tradition. Should that which he 
and his father and his grandfather had learned and practised 
and admired as a masterpiece of human culture and erudition, 
be now set aside ? And should things be put in its place which 
he did not possess and did not need, — quite unnecessary 
things, no doubt; for had he not been educated and learned, 
respected and happy without them ? Impossible ; only crim- 
inal carelessness and ignorance of the true value of things can 
lead to such perverse thoughts ! In the same way, the clergy- 
man will meet all attempts to change the church institutions or 
the creed ; the general, attacks upon the military organization 
or the army-ration; the privy councillor, changes in the 
state constitution and administrative practice. All of them 
will feel inclined to look upon the demanded changes at 
least as quite unnecessary innovations, usually, however, as 



VERACITY 693 

the beginnings of an obnoxious and ruinous revolution. 
Should they really be introduced, the ruin of the country, 
the destruction of the army, the overthrow of religion, would 
be the inevitable result. Thus our learned school authorities 
have for the last three hundred years prophesied the return 
of the barbarism of the Middle Ages every time they were 
disturbed in their obsolete pedantry. In order to guard 
against all such calamities from the very outset, all author- 
ities are agreed that the best and safest, and therefore most 
advisable thing to do is to deal rigorously with the unbridled 
criticism to which youthful, inexperienced, or malicious 
heads are unfortunately always inclined. 

The opposition of the authorities finds support in the in- 
stinctive aversion of all privileged and propertied classes to 
changes, and in the inertia of the masses. The propertied 
classes are always conservative; they are " saturated, " and 
therefore intent upon preservation and peace. Happy and 
contented are those in possession — thus we might translate 
the old maxim of the jurists ; they do not crave for the new, 
but fear it. But the masses, too, are conservative by nature. 
The established order is the habitual order ; we have adapted 
ourselves to it; the new is, under all circumstances, strange 
and inconvenient, apt to be ridiculous and forbidding. How 
many sighs may not have been caused during the seventies 
by the new weights and measures and the new coins ! Things 
did n't fit, the litre did n't suit the pot nor the metre the body. 
We feel uncomfortable in a new house; nothing is in its 
place, no cozy nook reminds us of pleasant hours. New 
institutions affect a nation in the same way, and therefore it 
shuns change. And for the same reason the masses have an 
instinctive fear of all criticism; they, too, feel that this 
undermines the ground upon which the institutions rest 
which have become endeared to them or endurable through 
habit. Bitter experiences or strong pressure are required to 
arouse in them a strong desire for change. 



694 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

We might at last also speak of the inertia of the old concept 
tions themselves. When the Copernican theory of the celes- 
tial motions was first advanced, it was regarded by the 
authorities as an unfruitful or absurd hypothesis, which did 
not deserve serious consideration, except, perhaps, to be 
refuted so that the devil might not play his tricks with it 
and use it to deride the word of God. They did not find the 
new view in any way suited to explain the phenomena; the 
old geocentric idea explained things so naturally that, in 
comparison with it, the new one seemed awkward, nay, 
absurd and nonsensical. For, do we not feel that the earth 
is fixed, do we observe even the slightest evidence of this 
fabulous motion which is falsely ascribed to it ? The new 
theory was developed by Kepler and Galileo, and the age of 
ridicule was followed by the age of refutation and persecu- 
tion. The old ideas really began to appreciate their peril, 
which was not yet the case in the sixteenth century. Now 
they reacted with all the means at their command; what 
these were we may learn from the biographies of Kepler and 
Galileo. The discovery of the circulation of the blood by 
Harvey met with a similar fate. The physicians who had 
for so many centuries looked at things and treated men 
according to the Galenian theory could not see what advan- 
tages were to be derived from the new hypothesis, either 
theoretically or practically. And how unreasonable to de- 
mand that one should repudiate one's own past, and over- 
throw the authorities of the centuries on account of this 
queer-headed fellow ! In the same way the authorities re- 
jected Darwin's biological theories and Strauss's researches 
in evangelical history, in a later century, as untrue, useless, 
and dangerous. 

Thus the old truths are protected by a mighty dam of con- 
servative interests against the flood of new thoughts. No 
new truths shall come into the world ; in this the authorities 
and the masses, the established order and the prevailing 



VERACITY 695 

truths, are agreed. That is, no important and great truths, 
no new ideas and fundamental conceptions ; expositions and 
elaborations, supplementations and corrections, applications 
and adaptations of the recognized theories and opinions, — 
these are permitted, and not only permitted, but welcomed and 
publicly rewarded. Perhaps there never was a time which 
was so liberal in rewarding such work as the present. And 
this is perfectly proper and commendable : the great truths 
would have made their way even without the rewards. Al- 
though Truth is, to quote Bacon, a bride without a dowry, she 
has never wanted for suitors. Petty and laborious tasks, on 
the other hand, the investigation of manuscripts and the 
description of fungi and bugs, the entire work of scientific 
registration, which, too, is necessary, possibly lack inner 
attractiveness, and it is therefore right that the efficient 
performance of such duties should be publicly rewarded. 

The consequence of the opposition of the combined con- 
servative interests is, then, that new ideas are invariably 
presented to the world by martyrs. A peculiar custom is 
ascribed to the Locrians : whoever introduced a measure for 
altering the existing laws, was compelled to appear in the 
popular meeting in which he argued for it with a rope 
around his neck, by which he was hung up if he did not 
succeed in convincing his fellow-citizens. An ingenious 
custom ! History acts in the same way, with the difference, 
however, that she first uses the rope and convinces herself 
afterwards. 

9. Thus the attitude of mankind to new truths is psycho- 
logically necessary. But it is also teleologically necessary. 

Historical life is evidently not possible without fixed and 
permanent institutions ; they are the means by which collec- 
tive reason determines and governs the life of the individual. 
The many, we might say, somewhat modifying a remark of 
Heraclitus, although they believe they are living according 
to their own insight, are in reality governed by the common 



696 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

reason. Now institutions could not acquire stability, if new 
ideas were to rush through the heads of men, meeting with 
no resistance, like the wind over a stubble-field. Permanent 
conceptions are the preconditions of permanent institutions. 
Hence, in order that historical life may be possible, it is 
necessary that the thoughts become fixed and take firm root 
in the minds of men, and offer resistance to new thoughts 
which seek to push them out. Perhaps they cannot be estab- 
lished firmly enough, at first, without a transcendent sanc- 
tion. This would explain the teleological necessity of a 
religious metaphysic, which we actually find everywhere, 
as the original foundation of the faith and the life of a 
people, of its morals and laws, and which usually offers 
such great resistance to the introduction of new truths. 
Nay, we can manifestly form no conception whatever of a 
mental-historical life in which we should not have to battle 
for the truth against error and prejudice; of what would it 
consist ? Without friction no motion. 

Nor need we expect these pathfinders and martyrs of truth 
to quarrel with fate on this account. Lessing's words re- 
garding the possession and pursuit of truth are well known. 
He surely would not have desired that truths be acquired 
otherwise than by struggle. Not all of those who have 
battled for the truth were as fond of struggle as Lessing. 
Yet it is doubtful whether any one among them would have 
been willing to change the order of nature, had it been in 
his power to do so. That constitutes the special glory of a 
witness of the truth, an inner voice might have whispered to 
him, in case the tempter had approached him, to be slan- 
dered and persecuted by the present. If, instead of this, 
the discoverers and pioneers of new truths were honored 
during their lives, as they are honored by posterity, these 
honors, too, would be taken away from them by the skilful 
and the ambitious. Then the vain and self-conceited would 
be eternally pushing themselves to the front with new opin- 



VERACITY 697 

ions. Owing to this beneficent arrangement, the spiritual 
leadership of humanity is finally reserved for men of great, 
earnest, and unselfish hearts. That would be impossible if 
the truth flattered their contemporaries. And, therefore, 
this inner voice may have concluded, it is good that the 
stones intended as corner-stones of the future should be 
rejected by the builders of the present. 

Wenn das Gute wiirde vergolten, 
So ware es keine Kunst es zu thun ; 
Aber Verdienst ist es nun 
Zu thun, wofiir du wirst gescholten. 

Thus all those may console themselves with Riickert who 
are abused for truth and justice' sake, — if, indeed, they need 
any consolation. For it is worthy of note that the great 
martyrs of truth did not leave the world with hatred and 
bitterness. Jesus prayed upon the cross for his persecutors : 
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." 
They did not intend to persecute the truth, but error, — 
destructive error. Nay, they themselves had to serve the 
truth as unconscious organs. "Must not the Son of man 
suffer and die in order that all things might be fulfilled ? " 
How could the victory be won without the last battle ? 

A paradoxically-inclined person might even reason as fol- 
lows : It is really to be deplored that so little zeal is shown 
in persecuting new truths in our times. The result is that 
great characters are no longer formed, as of old, when wit- 
nesses of the truth and pioneers of thought were crucified and 
burned. Take the life of Carlyle. Beyond doubt, he was by 
nature and temperament made of the stuff of witnesses of the 
truth, prophets, and martyrs: what might he not have be- 
come if he had lived three centuries earlier ! In this weak 
nineteenth century he was partially overwhelmed by paltry 
troubles, — troubles with reviewers and publishers of period- 
icals, troubles with his neighbors' cocks and dogs. These 
were his battles, battles of no very elevating nature, how- 



698 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

ever honestly and valiantly he may have fought them. This 
state of affairs, too, makes it hard for men to recognize what 
is truly great and enduring. Whether a man is thoroughly 
in earnest with a cause will be perfectly evident only in case 
he is willing to offer his life for it. 

However, I do not deem it superfluous to add a remark to 
these entire reflections. Universal affirmative propositions 
cannot, as is known, be converted simply. From the propo- 
sition, All great new truths were persecuted and rejected as 
heresies at their first appearance, it does not follow that all 
heresies and paradoxes are great new truths. Writers who 
are despised and repudiated by their contemporaries are in 
the habit of reasoning thus, and of appealing from the pres- 
ent to posterity. But posterity does not accept all such 
appeals. Not all those who are called are chosen; there 
are false prophets and even false martyrs. Great and 
extraordinary powers are needed to bear the overthrow of 
recognized truths. When common natures are driven by 
accident and circumstances to battle against recognized 
truths and established authorities, they become empty 
blatherskites. Are these more common in our age than 
formerly ? If so, we may perhaps attribute it to the fact 
that serious persecutions no longer occur in our times; 
minds were winnowed by martyrdom. 

10. I shall close this entire discussion with a considera- 
tion of the question : Does the duty of communicating truth 
universally demand the destruction of error wherever and in 
whatever form it may appear ? It is one of the great con- 
troversies which have always moved mankind. We may de- 
fine it as the controversy "between the will and the intellect^ 
between the practical and speculative sides of human nature. 
The will, turned towards self-preservation, demands, as was 
shown above, stability of institutions, and therefore also 
of the conceptions upon which they are grounded. The 
spiritual and temporal authorities, which we may term the 



VERACITY 699 

representatives of the will in history, therefore always 
incline to the demand that certain things be fixed once and 
for all, which criticism should not be permitted to disturb. 
The intellect, on the contrary, refuses to close the debate; 
to hinder the continuation of the investigation means for it 
the perpetuation of error. The end of all research is the 
absolute accommodation of knowledge to reality. But this 
goal is infinitely remote, and hence the attempt better to 
adapt the conceptual system to reality must be constantly 
renewed. Nor are the fundamental principles excepted; 
they, too, must be subjected to progressive changes, if only 
for the reason that the constant extension and intensification 
of particular knowledge ultimately demands a rearrange- 
ment of the facts. 

The antagonism between these two tendencies, formulated 
as a conflict of principles, turns upon the question: Is truth 
under all circumstances good and error harmful? Or may the 
preservation of error at times be necessary, and its destruc- 
tion harmful ? The politicians, if we may designate the rep- 
resentatives of the will by this term, affirm the latter, the 
philosophers, the representatives of the intellect, the former 
question. 

If the question is asked absolutely and universally, it will 
be impossible to answer it otherwise than with the philoso- 
phers : Truth is good, error harmful. Since things do not 
govern themselves according to our opinions, we must 
govern our opinions according to things. Things, says 
Bishop Butler, are what they are, and their effects will be 
what they are ; why should we wish to deceive ourselves ? 
A negro attempts to make rain or to cure diseases by magic. 
He is doubly harmed; he wastes his energies, while disease 
and drouth remain. 

On the other hand, it seems to be impossible to deny that 
the destruction of an erroneous idea does not, under all cir- 
cumstances, promote the welfare of him who harbors it 



700 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

Hence an inadequate idea may be better than none at all; 
and the conditions may be such as to make it possible to 
undermine the false conception without establishing the true 
one. It may be possible to deprive a negro of his faith in 
the fetich, without at the same time giving him true ideas 
of the natural connection of things. Would he then be bene- 
fited by being freed from error ? Fetiches are employed by 
negroes for the protection of property; the thief fears the 
magic, and it frequently happens that stolen goods are re- 
turned in consequence. It may be a very imperfect police 
force, but it is perhaps better than none at all. A wooden 
leg, says Schopenhauer, is better than none at all, and any 
religion better than none. 

We must remember that truths are not ready-made things, 
which pass from hand to hand like coins ; truths are living 
functions, and do not exist in any other form. Hence they 
cannot really be communicated. A person may assist me in 
creating thoughts, but he cannot transfer his thoughts to me ; 
I can only think the thoughts which I myself produce. And 
the assistance which he renders me herein does not always 
consist in his repeating to me the thoughts with which he is 
familiar. The straightest path is by no means always the 
shortest in history. At the beginning of the thirteenth cen- 
tury the Middle Ages became acquainted with the natural- 
scientific writings of Aristotle. Our natural scientists will 
hardly see in them anything but a more or less subtle web of 
errors. And yet these books were undoubtedly of great value 
to the thirteenth century, perhaps of much greater value 
than the most perfect text-books of the present could have 
been to it. If the best handbooks of physics, chemistry, 
and astronomy, which the nineteenth century has brought 
forth, had fallen from the skies, in the thirteenth century, 
they would most likely have been thrown aside, after a brief 
examination, as utterly unintelligible and useless things. 
The thinkers of those days would not have known what to do 



VERACITY 701 

with them, any more than we know what to do with books 
full of cabalistic symbols and formulae. Hence, if any one 
in his zeal for the truth, if, for instance, that omnipotent 
being of Descartes, had interfered, not in order to deceive, 
but to prevent deception, and had destroyed the Aristotelian 
books and sent the others down from heaven, what would 
have been the result ? Evidently the development of natural 
science among the Western nations would have been, if not 
prevented, at least retarded for several centuries. Without 
the assistance of a teacher adapted to their needs, these 
nations would have had to enter upon the long road to 
knowledge alone, and who knows whether they ever would 
have found it ? Had the solution of the riddle — if we are 
bold enough to regard the text-books of the present as such — 
been communicated to them, it would scarcely have helped 
them. It is well known that investigators for centuries tried 
to find the philosopher's stone, which was supposed to be 
able to turn everything it touched into gold. They did not 
find the stone, but the science of chemistry. The stone was 
a fiction, but the fiction led to the truth after all: for does 
not chemistry turn everything into gold ? 

Now the different stages of development are not only suc- 
cessive, but also simultaneous. The electrical arc light and 
the tallow candle exist side by side ; and each may be appro- 
priate in its place. So, too, different physical and meta- 
physical conceptions and fundamental principles exist side 
by side ; the investigator and thinker and the little mother 
in the remote mountain nook, cannot think the world 
with the same thoughts. Truth is one, the conception of 
things projected upon the perfect intellect ; but the real in- 
tellects are more or less imperfect, and therefore require 
different methods of conceiving things. 

From this point of view the controversy between the poli- 
ticians and the philosophers, it seems to me, may be settled. 

The philosophers are right in this : no limits are to be set 



702 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

to research. Whatever new thoughts a nation produces, will 
be suitable and good for it. We may cherish the belief that 
nature, here as everywhere, brings forth at the proper time 
what is appropriate and necessary. Every advance in knowl- 
edge, viewed from the standpoint of the total development 
of a popular life, is a genuine advance. The investigator as 
such can therefore be concerned with no other question than 
this : What is true ? But since there can be no research with- 
out communication, we must say further that no limit shall 
be set to the communication of knowledge. The scientific 
writer has but one concern : How shall I most clearly and 
definitely present the things as I see them ? Whoever allows 
himself to be governed by considerations and purposes of a 
different kind, whoever is thinking, first and last, how he 
may please this man and avoid displeasing that one, does not 
serve the truth, and therefore the truth also despises him. 
Truth gives herself only to him who seeks for her alone. 
The inconsiderate and " unintentional " books are the endur- 
ing books. The author ought not even to think of the good 
of the reader but only of the subject itself; the more he is 
wrapped up in this, the better he will write. " With philosoph- 
ical systems," the old Wandsbecker Bote once said, "which 
are invented by their authors for others, and are constructed 
as fig leaves or for the sake of controversy or for show, 
sensible people will have nothing to do. But in philoso- 
phers who seek for light and truth to satisfy their own needs, 
and to remove the load of untruth oppressing their hearts, 
other people have the deepest interest. " 

So far the philosophers are right. The politicians, on the 
other hand, are right in this, that when it comes to imparting 
knowledge by instruction, which is designed for particular 
persons, we must be guided not only by a regard for the sub- 
ject but by a regard for the person. This consideration — we 
may call it the pedagogical consideration — may prevent the 
teacher from saying everything he thinks, and from saying 



VERACITY 703 

what he thinks just as he thinks it in his own mind. We 
do not tell the simplest experience to two different persons 
in the same way; we take into account the person, and 
govern our narrative and voice, the selection and arrange- 
ment of the facts, accordingly. How could we speak of 
greater things, how could we speak of God and the world, to 
persons of different age, education, inclinations, and views 
in the same words ? It is the same history of mankind which 
is taught in the Volksschule, in the gymnasium, and the 
university; and yet how different must be the method of 
treatment in order that it may be good, instructive, and 
edifying in each place. The same also applies to ultimate 
principles: the world is one and the same, and so is the 
truth; but it cannot reflect the same countenance in every 
mirror. 

What is true of the teacher in the school is true also of the 
preacher in the pulpit. To him, too, the pedagogical law is 
applicable : Discuss the truth in such a way that these par- 
ticular hearers before you may be instructed and edified 
thereby. Let us suppose that his congregation lives in an 
out-of-the-way village on the moor, to which not even the 
faintest rumor of the things which have occurred in theology 
and literature during the last hundred years has penetrated, 
where the names of Strauss and Renan are as little known 
as those of Kant and Schleiermacher. Here the Bible is 
still accepted in the literal sense as the word of God, which 
has been transmitted to us by the holy men to whom it was 
entrusted. Our clergyman, however, has been convinced by 
higher criticism that the Sacred Scriptures were made in a 
very human way, like other writings, that different concep- 
tions, contradictions, and even errors are contained in them, 
not to speak of the uncertainties of tradition. Ought this to 
keep him from speaking to his congregation of the Bible as 
the word of God ? Or ought he, for example, to lecture on 
the results of higher criticism, in order to free them of their 



704 DOCTRINE OF VIRTCES AND DUTIES 

time-honored prejudices and errors ? What would he accom- 
plish by that ? If he succeeded in taking from the peasants 
their old faith, what could he give them in return ? Strauss's 
Life of Christ or Kant's Religion within the Bounds of Mere 
Reason ? By that, he would simply succeed in bringing into 
contempt the only book which hitherto served them as a guide 
and a light, as a poetical pleasure in life and a consolation 
in death. For they would surely be apt to say, in case they 
believed him : So, then, we have been deceived by this book ; 
we thought it was God's word, and now we see it is the 
word of man, and hence we had better cast it aside and rea£ 
what the wise men of to-day write. That is what educated 
people do : they accept the conclusion of criticism that the 
Bible is not God's word, and therefore cease reading it. 
Hence if our preacher does not wish that to happen, if he 
desires, as in fact he does, the Bible to be the first, the 
most important, nay, perhaps the only book needed by his 
moor-peasants, and perhaps also by other human beings, 
which it will do them more good to read every day than the 
most widely-circulated daily newspaper with its three edi- 
tions a day, and the most cultured weekly and monthly jour- 
nal besides : if he believes this, he will without scruple and 
hesitation speak of the book in the language in which the 
peasants on the moor are accustomed to hear it spoken of. 
Is he telling them the untruth ? What does it mean to say 
that the Bible is God's word ? Is it a falsehood ? Is it a 
literary -historical notice like the statement that Gutzkow is 
the author of the Magician of Rome? No, it is a metaphor 
which expresses a judgment of value in the most emphatic 
form. It means that its contents are so grand and true that 
it is a divine book, and comes from God. The same preacher 
might, if he were transferred to different surroundings and 
now had to speak to readers of Strauss and Kant, change his 
language without changing his view, and without proving 
false to the truth in either case. He would, entering into 



VERACITY 705 

their conceptions, say to them : All that you have read or 
heard or even written about these books is certainly highly 
interesting, and some of it perhaps also true. But now for- 
get all that for a moment, and consider with me what is said 
in these books, which originated in such and such a way. 
Very serious things are said, it seems to me, — things which 
are often told with wonderful and unique simplicity and 
power ; so that I am in a certain sense brought back to the 
view that this book, like no other book in the world, con- 
tains divine words and a revelation of God, — a view which 
Goethe and Herder held, whom my hearers will perhaps be 
more inclined to believe in these matters than a modern the- 
ologian. — If to build up (olfcoSo/ielv) and not to tear down is 
the real business of the preacher as well as of the teacher, he 
must, it seems to me, take this position. This would be, as 
the Apostle says, speaking the truth in love and not in anger 
(dXTjOeveiv iv a^airrj). 1 

The same preacher might, finally, if, as a scholar, he pub- 
lished philological-historical investigations of the sacred 
Scriptures, also speak in still another strain. Here he would 
again, in order to fulfil the duty of veracity, avoid the very 
thing that he cannot and should not avoid as a preacher, 
that is, accommodation to the thoughts and language of 
others. And he would likewise avoid the attempts at concil- 
iation, the makeshifts, and the weak excuses, employed to 
save a theory, the squinting at orthodoxy, the haggling for 
the truth, the circumvention of the confession that a thou- 
sand things remain riddles to him, in fact everything that 
makes many commentaries on the Gospels so unbearable to 
every truthful man. Here, indeed, we need a new Luther 
who will make short work of the commentaries and 
controversies. 2 

1 Ephesians, IV., 15. 

2 Objections have been raised against this view. A sincere and truthful nature, 
fe is contended, cannot do this. I confess the difficulty without controversy, 
but I believe it U aot due to the thing itself but to the conditions in which our 



706 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

From this point of view the duties of a church and school 
administration are to be determined. No man should be in- 
terfered with in his calling as a teacher on account of his 
dissenting opinions, but only on the ground of pedagogical 
blunders. The preacher and the teacher is not employed as 
a hireling to present " correct " views, it is his business to 
express his faith, his convictions, and his soul. In case he 
exhibits a lack of skill, he should receive advice from the 
more experienced; but if he does not wish to accept it or 
cannot understand it, he must choose another calling; not 
everybody is called to preach or to teach. Nor is everybody 
qualified to criticise another's method of teaching, surely not 
one whose chief claim to distinction is " correctness of thought" 
and an ability to write official documents. Harsh attempts 

clergymen find themselves placed at present. If the village were, as was assumed, 
absolutely isolated, if it contained only the peasants with their faith and the 
clergyman with his faith and his knowledge, one difficulty would still remain : 
how are people to understand each other who do not think the same thoughts 1 
But the moral difficulty would not exist. The latter is due to the fact that the 
preacher lives in an environment in which positions and promotions are open to the 
professors of the creed, whatever may be their real attitude to it ; a proud and 
upright nature may find it impossible to tolerate even the appearance of being in- 
fluenced by such considerations. And besides, where shall we find a village into 
which the disconnected elements of the new ideas have not been carried, say by a 
soldier returning home from the capital or by a social-democratic pamphlet ? 
Under such circumstances I can easily understand the painfulness of the situa- 
tion, and I am far from blaming a man who cannot endure it any longer. I 
simply say : A man can assume a different attitude without deserving to be 
accused of insincerity. — The case is different so soon as he is asked by the 
people : Do you really believe that God is the author of the Bible 1 The question 
suggests doubt, and doubt is an indication of a desire for knowledge, obscure 
though it may be ; and this calls for instruction, instruction in the real history 
of the origin of the Bible, in which case it will perhaps be discovered that this is 
a difficult problem, probably much more difficult than the inquirers surmised. 
And to the over-curious he may reply : My dear friend, if you would keep the 
word, you would find out whether it was of God or not. On the other hand, tc 
repel an honest doubter would be to prove false to the truth. And the so wide- 
spread distrust of the clergy and their sincerity is a mortifying proof that this 
has often been done. Nor will the distrust disappear so long as the conditions 
continue to which it owes its origin : that is, so long as the good positions are 
given to those who know how to profess and to be sileji* The 2jar f yrs had v 
difficulty in convincing men of the genuineness of their faH*. 



VERACITY 707 

at levelling make men bitter and dull. This office more 
than any other requires wisdom and self-control, acuteness 
of vision and leniency of judgment, and, above all, a wealth 
of knowledge and experience with respect to the things upon 
which mental power depends, to enable us not only to judge 
but also to give help. Lichtenberg's advice is admirable, 
and all those who belong to the spiritual regime should take 
it to heart every day : " Train your mind to doubt and your 
heart to toleration. " And a word of Goethe ought also to 
be borne in mind : " If older persons were only willing to 
adopt true pedagogical methods, they would not prohibit a 
young man from doing what gives him pleasure, whatever it 
may be, nor set him against it, unless they could at the same 
time give him something in place of it. " 

Besides, I do not wish to hide the fact that we have, in 
my opinion, magnified the difficulties existing in this field 
in a manner not warranted by the nature of the case. In a 
certain measure public instruction will always be behind the 
times. The school will, in the main, always be concerned 
with transmitting the stock of recognized truths. Now new 
truths never make their appearance in the world as recog- 
nized truths, but as heterodox ones. They cannot, even for 
this reason, gain admission to the schools. Then, again, the 
teachers have, for the most part, been educated by the older 
generation. This made it impossible for the Copernican 
theory to become a branch in the curriculum of the sixteenth 
century; nor can the Darwinian theory gain entrance into 
the schools of the nineteenth century ; — although I am not of 
the opinion that the teacher who desires to speak of it and 
can do it intelligently and tactfully should be prohibited from 
doing so. On the contrary, it is much wiser that a learned 
and reliable man should point out the significance and bear- 
ing of the new conception, which has spread so rapidly and 
has had such great influence upon our times, than that we 
should leave the matter to the accidental and perhaps very 



708 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

inadequate treatment of the first penny-a-liner who happens 
along. 

But be this as it may, it will at some future time seem very 
strange that our age has so placidly adhered to a system of 
religious instruction which arose many centuries ago under 
entirely different conditions of intellectual life, and which 
is, in so many respects, decidedly opposed to the facts and 
ideas which are regarded as firmly established outside of the 
school and church. It is a secret to no one, not even to the 
pupils of our gymnasia, that much of what our present 
religious instruction obliges teachers and pupils to accept as 
literal truth — think of the Old Testament — is not regarded 
in that light anywhere in the world, not even by our school 
directors or ministerial councillors, who in their role of 
supervisors insist upon the " correctness " of the teaching. 
Our philological -historical and natural-scientific investigators 
are so utterly out of line with the dogmatic doctrine of our 
creed that they pay absolutely no attention to it, that they 
do not even take the trouble to contradict it. And everybody 
knows how little the great poets and thinkers of the epoch 
which we teach our pupils to regard as the classic age of our 
spiritual life, cared for the teachings of the church, nay, in 
part, also for the Christian religion. 

I cannot help thinking that religious instruction which 
overlooks this fact, or simply mentions it in order to deplore 
it and to accuse these men of infidelity and perhaps also of 
frivolousness, cannot, as a rule, produce the effects which 
we expect and desire: appreciation of Christianity as an 
historical phenomenon and reverence for its founder. If 
the instruction is imparted by a one-sided young theologian, 
who has great faith in the correctness of his dogmatic views, 
and combines with this little capacity for guiding souls, the 
opposite effect is apt to ensue : distrust and aversion, feelings 
which spread from their source to everything connected 
with it. 



VERACITY 709 

A book recently fell into my hands which I was unable to 
read without some reluctance: Max Nordau's Conventional 
Lies. 1 This book is conspicuous neither for its literary merit 
nor for the depth of its views ; it is not even amusing. It 
contains nothing but the assurance, a hundred times repeated, 
that our entire life is one great falsehood; religion and the 
church, the monarchy and the parliament, liberalism and con- 
servatism, marriage and the family, sociableness and society, 
— everything is a lie, particularly religion. We pretend to 
regard it as the most sacred and certain thing, while in 
reality it is the most indifferent thing to us in the world. 
This book has passed through sixteen editions in the course 
of a few years, and must therefore have been bought and 
read. I asked a bookseller, Who reads the book ? and re- 
ceived the answer, Why, everybody. That means, of course, 
everybody who goes to the book-store ; that is, all educated 
people, all those who have attended the gymnasium and the 
university. 

We may think what we choose of the judgment shown by 
these readers; it remains a highly significant fact that 
such a book has met with such success. What makes the 
work so attractive ? I can discover no reason for it except 
this, that it declares openly and forcibly what a great many 
of its readers think and feel. An age is characterized more 
by the books which it reads than by those which it writes. 

And this book of Lies does not stand alone ; there is an 
entire literature which deals with the same theme. What 
attracted the readers of Strauss's Old and Nieiv Faith 2 or 
Biichner's Force and Matter, 3 if not the openness with which 
these writers repudiated the old faith ? What is it that in- 
spires Diihring and Nietzsche but the desire to unmask false- 
hood. What impels the modern novel writers and dramatists 

1 Die konventionellen Liigen der Kulturmenschheit. 
8 Der alte und neue Glaube, translated by M. Blind. 
8 Translated by Collingswood. 



710 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

but the desire to analyze the falseness and the inner rottenness 
of the times, and to expose them to the microscopic gaze of the 
reader ? An entire literature which makes a business of un~ 
masking falsehood, — this, beyond doubt, is the trait which the 
history of literature of a later age will regard as highly charac- 
teristic of the spirit of the dying nineteenth century. That the 
conflict between what we really think and believe, and what 
we teach our youth to say or to believe in our church and 
school instruction, is partially to blame for this, no one who 
has eyes to see will deny. In almost every life this reaction 
appears sooner or later, with more or less violence; and 
since it usually happens at an age which other conditions 
also help to make critical, it often leads to a serious crisis 
in which many a young man receives permanent injury, and 
many a one is ruined for life. With the church faith, moral- 
ity becomes an object of suspicion, and the enlightenment 
leads to an ostensible repudiation of morality. When indo- 
lence, regard for others, or cowardice keeps others from 
professing their thoughts, or from confessing their doubts 
to themselves, hypocrisy or inner falsehood utterly destroys 
the moral life. 1 

I see but one way out of this difficulty. During the for- 
ties and the fifties many indulged in the hope that the conflict 
might be overcome by a more rigorous use of authority in 
favor of the old orthodoxy. Even governments, in a large 
measure, followed the advice that science be forced to a 

1 Fr. Jodl admirably points out the danger in a thoughtful lecture on the 
Nature and Aims of the Ethical Movement in Germany (1893) [Wesen und 
Ziele der ethischen Bewegung in Deutschland] : u Year after year the highest and 
most sacred things, ethical convictions and ideals, are imparted to the younger 
generation, mixed with dogmatic propositions, which absolutely contradict the 
mental tendency which all other forces in life and education aim to develop 
And thus a double evil is eternally produced which like a cancer eats away our 
spiritual life: inwardly the ethical principles and ideals break down with the 
weak supports to which they have been artificially attached, outwardly they are 
adhered to, often with conscious hypocrisy, on account of the attitude of the 
state. Religion becomes the state dress for our Byzantinism, behind which inter- 
nal shallowness, nay, rottenness, with difficulty conceals itself." 



VERACITY 711 

change of front, or at least that instruction be governed, so 
far as possible, by the old formulas. The result is apparent: 
they have thereby created these readers of the literature men- 
tioned above. Hence only one way is left: to accommodate 
the church dogma to the theoretical thoughts and conceptions 
which are possible to our time. In this way Christianity 
would not be given up as a practical life-principle, but freed 
from bonds which impede its progress. What robs the Gos- 
pel of its efficacy in our times is its amalgamation with the 
old church dogma. If it were offered us as something purely 
human and historical, it would even now move the hearts of 
men. The formulae of the longer and shorter catechisms 
stifle and kill it. 

It looks as if this view were making some headway within 
theological circles, at least upon Protestant soil. If the 
movement were to lead to a real and permanent peace be- 
tween religion and science, I should regard it as a blessing 
for the European nations. Nations cannot live without re- 
ligion; religion, however, cannot live permanently if it is 
in conflict with philosophy and science. But the possibility 
of the peace lies in the direction in which Kant sought it 
and believed himself to have found it a hundred years ago. 
Let scientific research proceed as far as possible upon her 
course, regardless of the objections of the dogma ; the entire 
historical and natural realm is absolutely open to her investi- 
gations. But the relation of the human mind to reality is 
not exhausted by scientific knowledge. It cannot help con- 
structing thoughts concerning the meaning of the whole; 
these thoughts, however, are not a matter of demonstration, 
like physical theories or historical facts; they are based 
upon the soul's participation in things, upon the selective 
judgment of value ; they rest upon the volitional side of man's 
nature. In their unity they make up the faith of the human 
soul. There will therefore be unity of faith between all 
those tvTio recognize the same highest good. But the dogma, 



712 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 

as the formula of the faith, would be an expression of the 
conception of reality from the point of view of the highest 
good. A dogma in this sense could never come in conflict 
with science, because it would never make any assertions 
concerning that aspect of things which is accessible to 
science. It would bind the will, but not the understanding. 



INDEX 



[The letter n. stands for note, 
ant places.] 



Asterisks are inserted to assist the reader in finding import 



Abbott, 194 n. 2, 222 n. 1, 224 n. 1, 321 

n. 1, 584 n. 1. 

Advice, 686. 

^Eschylus, 411. 

^Esthetics, 19. 

Albee, 185 n. 2, n. 3. 

Alexander, S., 193. 

Almsgiving, 642 ff. 

Altruism and egoism, 379 * ff. ; now 
judged morally, 391 ff. 

Ambition, 574 ff. 

Ambrose, 76, 170* f. 

Amor Dei, Spinoza's, 183. 

Anaxagoras, 59. 

Angelus Silesius, 441. 

Anselm, 120 f. 

Anthropology, 2. 

Antiquitv contrasted with Middle Ages, 
119 ff." 

Anzengruber, 375 n. 1. 

Apocalypse, 105. 

A priori method in ethics, 6 ff. 

Aristotle, 39 n. 1, 60, 224, 251 n. 1, 257, 
273 ff., 374, 407 n. 1, 426, 430 f., 454 n. 2, 
475 n. 1, 478, 483 n. 1, 495, 534, 536 n. 1, 
569 n. 1, 599 n. 1; his definition of 
ethics, 1; his ethical system, 48* ff. ; 
his conception of ethics as a practical 
science, 25 ; his conception of highest 
good, 36 f. ; and Spinoza, 52 ; his con- 
ception of the tragedy, 263 f. 

Arnold, M., 288. 

Art, 283, 432, 556 * ff. ; affectation of, 560 
f.; its effects on human soul, 558 f. ; and 
life, 559 ff.; in Middle Ages, 125, 5G2; 
modern, 563 ff.; foreign elements in 
modern, 563 ff. 

Asceticism, 488 *ff.; in Greek and Chris- 
tian ethics, 167 ff.; Jesus's attitude 
Awards, 93 ff. ; in Middle Ages, 119 f., 
171 f. ; in Plato, 47 f. ; and Reformation. 
132 f. 



Atheism, 425, 430. 

Athletics, 519 ff., 526. 

Atomism and religion, 423 ff. 

Auerbach, B., 306. 

Aufklarung, 28, 40, 1-10 f. 

Augustine, 32, 321 n. 1, 454 n. 3,487; his 

ethical system, 171*; his conception of 

evil, 332; his conception of virtues, 69; 

and Luther, 131. 
Authoritativeness of conscience, 342 ff., 

363 ff. 
Avarice, 536 ff. 

Bacon, 379 n. 1, 695; on atheism, 430; 

on causality, 6 f . ; his modern ideals, 

137 * ff. 
Bad, 321* ff.; definition of the, 248 f.; 

good and, 222 ff. 
Baer, 507 n. 1. 
Bain, 192 * n. 1, 251 n. 1, 253 n. 1, 340 

n. 1, 346 n. 1, 379 n. 1. 
Baldwin, 253 n. 1, 340 n. 1, 341 n. 1, 343 

n. 1, 405 n. 1, 452 n. 1. 
Barbarian conception of life, 37 ff. ; con- 
trasted with Greek and Christian ideals, 

167 ff. 
Barratt, 192 * n. 1, 251 n. 1. 
Baumann, 215 n. 1, 452 n. 1. 
Baumgartner, 592 n. 2. 
Baur, 65 n. 1, 98 n. 1. 
Bayle, 327 n. 1. 
Beccaria, his theory of capital punishment, 

611. 
Beneficence, 596 ff. 

Benevolence, 592* ff., 599, 638* ff., 664. 
Bentham, 190 *, 223, 251 n. 1, 340 n. 1, 

354, 380 n. 4, 382, 606 n. 1. 
Berner, 610, 631 f. 
Bestmann, 65 n. 1. 
Bias of Priene, 336. 
Bildung, 554 f. 
Bismarck, 531. 



714 



INDEX 



Blackie, 483 n. 2. 

Blind, 90 n. 5, 709 n. 2. 

Bluntschli, 262 n. 1, 550. 

Bodily life, 505 ff. 

Bowne, 193 *n. 1, 415 n. 1, 599 n. 1, 606 n. 1. 

Bowring, 190 n. 1. 

Bradley, 193 * n. 1, 227 n. 1, 251 n. 1. 350 

n. 1. 
Brentano, 340 n. 1. 
Brillat-Savarin, 506 n. 1. 
Brinckmann, 324 n. 1. 
Biichner, 709. 
Buckle, 136 f. 
Buddha, 114 f. 

Buddhism and Christianity, 114 f. 
Buhle, 147 n. 1. 

Burckhardt, 111, 127 n. 1, 128, 372. 
Butler, 340 n. 1, 379 n. 1, 699. 
Byron, 303, 444 n. 1. 

Calderwood, 35 n. 1, 192* n. 4, 340 n. 1. 

Calling, 530 ff. 

Calumny, 669 f . 

Calvin, 454 n. 4; on free-will, 455. 

Campe, 484 n. 2. 

Capital, 533 ff. 

Capital punishment, 611 f. 

Cardinal virtues, 45. 

Carlyle, 375, 697 ; his conception of highest 

good, 263 ; his conception of evil, 331 n. 

1 ; his estimate of suicide, 588 n. 1. 
Carriere, 127 n. 1, 215 n. 1. 
Carus, P., 114 n. 1. 
Cassian, 85 f. 
Catholic ethics, 169 ff. 
Catholicism, 125 n. 1, 136, 160 f., 169 ff. 
Cathrein, 215 n. 1. 
Causality and free-will, 460 n. 1. 
Celsus, his criticism of Christianity, 98 f . 
Certainty of moral law, 356 ff. 
Chamfort, 523. 
Chamisso, 413. 
Character, influence of prosperity upon, 

407 ff. 
Charity, 638 ff . ; Christian, 83 f., 157 n. 1. ; 

in Middle Ages, 124. 
Charity-craze, 646 ff. 
Charlemagne, 118. 
Christianity, 157 ff., 402, 613 ff., 638 ff. ; 

and Buddhism, 114 f.; and charity, 83 

f. ; and courage, 69 ff. ; and earthly 

goods, 87 ff.; and family-life, 84 ff.'; 

and honor, 78 f. ; and humility, 79 ; and 

immortality, 444 f. ; and justice, 613 ff. ; 

and knowledge, 67 f . ; and liberality, 82 ; 

and miracles, 435 ff. ; and the modern 

spirit, 155 ff . ; its moral ideal, 65 ff. ; 

contrasted with barbarian ideal, 167, ff., 



with Buddhism, 114 f., with Greek ideal 
65 ff ., with other ideals, 33 ff . ; Nietz- 
sche's criticism of, 150 ff. ; and pessi- 
mism, 405 f.; and pity, 81 f . ; and 
pleasure, 74 f . ; and Romans, 98 ff. ; and 
self-esteem, 81 f. ; and silence, 76; and the 
state, 72 ff. ; its triumph, 112 ff. ; and the 
ire'^ji \irtues, 67 ff.; and wealth, 77 f. 

Chrysostom, 646. 

Church, 116 ff., 123 ff., 126, 131 f., 409, 
436, 682 ff., 706 ff. 

Christianization of antiquity, 98 ff.; of the 
Germans, 117 ff. 

Cicero, 47, 53 n. 1, 56 n. 1. 

Civilization, and art, 559 ff. ; Christianity 
and, 91 ff. ; and morality, 314 ff.; and 
success, 314 ff . ; and wars, 395 ff. 

Clarke, 192* 340 n. 1. 

Classical education and patriotism, 661 f. 

Clement of Alexandria, 77. 

Clergy, 119 f., 132, 689. 

Clothing, 517 ff. 

Cohen, 194 n. 1. 

Coit, 415 n. 1, 447 n. 1. 

Collingwood, 709 n. 3. 

Columbus, 673. 

Comenius, 95. 

Compassion, 592* ff. ; Christian, 81 f. 

Compulsion in law, 604 ff. 

Comte, 48 n. 1, 191; and altruism, 379 f. 

Confidence, 666 f. 

Conscience, 340* ff . ; authority of, 363 ff . ; 
individualization of, 368 ff . ; infallibility 
of, 357 ff. ; origin of, 340 ff. ; its tran- 
scendent sanction, 366 f . ; Kant's theory 
of, 350 ff . ; Shaftesbury's view of, 186 ff."; 
Socrates and, 371 n. 1. ; utility of, 232 f . 

Conservatism and liberalism, 690 ff. 

Conversion, of Germans to Christianity and 
antiquity, 563 ff.; of Old World to 
Christianity 98 ff. 

Coulanges, Fustel de, 416 n. 1. 

Courage, 484 f., 495* ff. ; Greek and Chris- 
tian estimates of, contrasted, 69 ff.; 
Plato's conception of, 45. 

Cowardice, 495 ff . ; 668 f . 

Creed, religion and, 434 ff. 

Crime, charity and, 652 ff . ; poverty and, 
541 n.'l. 

Criminal characters, 371 ff. 

Crispin, 228 f. 

Criticism, higher, 703 ff. 

Cruelty, 648 ff. 

Cudworth, 192* 340 n. 1. 

Culture, 543 ff. 

Culture-religions and religions of redemp* 
tion, 163 ff. 

Cumberland, 185* 379 n. 1. 



INDEX 



715 



Cupidity, 491 ff. 

Custom and duty, 343* ff.; and instinct, 8 

f. ; law, morality, and religion, 415 ff. ; 

and will, 343 ff. 
Cynics, 109. 
Cyrenaics, 251 n. 1. 

Dante, 48 n 1. 

Darwin, 251 n. 1, 274 f., 340 n. 1, 344 n. 
2, 379 n. 1, 433; his ethical theory, 
192 * f . ; his theory of conscience, 341 f . 

David of Augsburg, 688 n. 1. 

Death, 335 * ff. ; Epicurus's attitude to- 
wards, 57 f. ; Greek and Christian con- 
ceptions of, 67. 

Deception, 664 ff. 

Democritus, 56 n. 2, 251 n. 1. 

Descartes and the modern spirit, 140 ff. 

Desire, impulse, and will, 220 f. 

Determinism, 452 ff. 

Dewey, 193 * n. 1. 

Diogenes Laertius, 53 f., 56 n. 1, 277 n. 2, 
337 n. 1. 

Diplomacy, 675 ff. 

Discretion, 687. 

Dishonor, 573. 

Disposition of agent and worth of act, 
224 ff. 

Distrust, 666 ff. 

Doring, 215 n. 1. 

Dorner, A., 29 n. 1, 122 n. 1, 215 n. 1, 
475 n. 1, 483 n. 1, 505 n. 1, 529 n. 1, 
569 n. 1, 599 n. 1, 638 n. 1, 664 n. 1. 

Dorner, I. A., 179. 

Dostoievski, 375 n. 1. 

Dress, 517 ff. 

Drobisch, 464 n. 1. 

Drunkenness, 479, 507 * ff., 590. 

Duhr, 239 n. 1. 

Duhring, 215 n. 1, 584 n. 1. 

Duncker, 114 n. 1. 

Duns Scotus, 454 n. 4. 

Diirer, his conception of art, 558 n. 1. 

Duties, 475 ff. 

Duty and Conscience, 340 * ff. ; and cus- 
tom, 343 f . ; and inclination, 346 ff. ; and 
merit, 377 f. 

Dwelling, 515 ff. 

ECKERMANN, 431, 580. 

Economic life, 529 ff. ; virtues, 536 ff. 

Education, 543 ff.; bodily, 505 ff. ; intel- 
lectual, 543 ff.; moral, 476 ff., 483 ff., 
498 ; religious, 708 ff. 

Effects of acts and disposition of agent, 
224 ff. 

Egoism, criticism of, 244 ff. 

Egoism and altruism, 244 ff., 379 * ff. ; how 



judged morally, 391 ff. ; in Hobbes and 
Spinoza, 380 ; in Shaftesbury and 
Hutcheson, 186. 

Einjahrigenschein, 551 f. 

Eliot, George, 90 n. 5, 305. 

Emerson, 522. 

Empiricism and rationalism in ethics, 6 if. 

End justifies the means, 233 ff. 

Ends and means, 253 ff., 275 ff. 

Enemy, love of, 616 ff. 

Energism, 223 f., 251 * ff., 270 ff. 

Enlightenment, 28, 40, 146 f., 336, 554; 
ethical conceptions of, 201 f. 

Ennui, 532. 

Epictetus, 55, 62, 106 * f., 493, 501, 624. 

Epicureans, 587. 

Epicurus, 56 * ff., 251 n. 1 ; his concept!®?* 
of philosophy, 61. 

Equality, 624 ff. 

Equanimity, 500 ff. 

Equity, 616 ff. 

Equivocation, 665. 

Erasmus and Luther, 131. 

Erdmann, J. E., 35 n. 1, 519 n. 1. 

Error, harmfulness of, 699 f. 

Essenes, 109. 

Ethics, aesthetics and, 19 ; Aristotle's con- 
ception of, 1; Christian, 33 f., 167 r 
169 ff.; definition of, 1 ff.; function of, 
4 ff . ; Greek, 33 ff. ; Greek conception of, 
1; history of, 33 ff . ; intuitional and 
teleological, 222 ff.; mediaeval, 169 ff.; 
metaphysics and, 44 f.; method of, 6 ff. ; 
modern, 179 ff.; natural science and, 
6 ff. ; nature of, 1 ff.; as a practical 
science, 1 ff . ; practical value of, 25 ff. ; 
relation of, to psychology and anthro- 
pology, 2 ; rationalistic and empirical, 
6 ff. ; theological, 169 ff . 

Ethical societies, 483 n. 2. 

Ethical virtues, Greek and Christian con- 
ceptions of, contrasted, 68 f. 

Eudaemonia, 36 ff.; Aristotle's conception 
of, 49; Stoic conception of, 54. 

Eudaemonism, 194 ff., 251 ff. 

Eucken, 17 n. 1, 35 n. 1. 

Eutuchia and eudaemonia, 407 ff. 

Everett, 475 n. 1. 

Evil, 321 * ff. ; physical and moral, 322 ff.; 
responsibility and, 461 f. 

Evolution, 278 ; egoism, altruism and, 
394 ff. ; ethics and, 214 f. 

Evolutional ethics, 192 f. 

Evolutionistic view of conscience, 364 f. 

Examinations, 549 f. 

Exercise, 519 ff. 

Expediency and truth, 672 ff. 

Extravagance, 536 ff. 



7lt) 



INDEX 



Faith and creed, 434 ff.; and life, 421 ff. 

Falsehood, 664 ff. 

Fame, 569 ff. 

Family-life and primitive Christianity, 

84 ff. 
Family-rights, 634. 
Fashion, 518 f. 
Faultfinding, 650 f., 687. 
Faust, 408 f . ; and conscience, 372. 
Fechner, 339 n. 1, 427. 
Feeling, as source of moral knowledge, 

11 f . ; and will, 221. 
Fetichism, 417 f. 
Feuchtersleben, 483 n. 2. 
Fichte, J. G., 340 n. 1, 353, 483 n. 1; his 

altruism, 380 n. 2 ; and the lie of neces- 
sity, 673 f . 
Fichte, J. H., 179 n. 3. 
Fischer, K., 127 n. 1, 179 n. 3. 
Fisher, 65 n. 1, 98 n. 1. 
Flattery, 670, 681. 
Forgiveness, 616 ff. 
Formal and material judgments of acts, 

227 ff. 
Forster, 194 n. 1. 
Fouiltee, 179 n. 3, 452 n. 1. 
Fowler, 185 n. 2; and Wilson, 192 n. 1, 

251 n. 1, 452 n. 1, 475 n. 1, 483 n. 1, 

505 n. 1, 529 n. 1, 569 n. 1, 592 n. 1, 

599 n. 1. 
Francke, A. H., 80, 305. 
Franklin, 484 n. 2. 
Frederick the Great, 588; his pessimism, 

300. 
Freedom and causality, 460 n. 1.; of 

teaching, 706 f. ; of thought, 698 ff.; of 

the will, 452 ff. 
Free-mindedness, 577 f. 
Free-will, 452 ff. 
Freytag, 306. 

Friedlander, 98 n. 1, 101 ff., 523. 
Frugality, 536 ff. 
Fullerton, 181 n. 2. 

Galileo and Hobbes, 179 f. 
Galitzin, Princess, 82. 
Gallwitz, 215 n. 1, 222 n. 1. 
Gass, 65 n. 1, 74 n. 2, 171 n. 1, 340 n. 1. 
Geiger, 127 n. 1. 
Geldart, 90 n. 3. 
Gellert, 199. 
Gellius, 252 n. 1. 
General culture, 547 ff. 
Gerhardt, Paul, 161. 
German ethics, 193 ff. 
Gilman, N. P., 475 n. 1. 
Gizycki, 179 n. 3, 185 n. 2, 189, 251 n. 1, 
415 n. 1 ; his criticism of Paulsen's ener- 



gism, 283 ff.; his criticism of Paulsen's 
conception of religion and morality, 
446 ff. 

Gladiators at Rome, 103 ff. 

Gliickseligkeit, 37 ff. 

Gluttony, 506 f. 

God, 43, 160 f., 219, 282, 428 ff., 436, 442 f . ; 
as the highest good, 282 f . ; Kingdom of, 
280, 318. 

Goethe, 308, 320, 333, 335, 355, 371 n. 1, 
402, 410, 425, 430 ff., 483 n. 2, 552, 554, 
568 ? 579 f., 594 f., 658, 680, 705,707; and 
Christianity, 164; his conception of evil, 
328 ff. ; his ideal, 201 f . ; his optimism, 
301 f. 

Good, and bad, 222* ff . ; definition of, 
248 f. ; the highest, 251 ff. 

Goods, doctrine of, 4. 

Gordon, C. G., 503 n. 1. 

Gothenburg system, 512. 

Gotthelf, J., 302. 

Gracchus, Caius, 103. 

Gratitude, 655 f . 

Greek art, 561 f. ; Greek, barbarian, ana 
Christian conceptions contrasted, 167 ff. * 
Greek and Christian conceptions con- 
trasted, 65 ff . ; Greek and Christian spirit, 
163 ff. ; Greek civilization and Middle 
Ages, 121; Greek ethics, 33 ff.; Greek 
ethics, summary of, 58 ff. 

Green, T. H., 189 n. 3, 193 *, 251 n. 1, 
452 n. 1. 

Gregory of Tours, 142 f . 

Guhrauer, 145 n. 1. 

Gurv, his theological system of ethics, 
17*3 ff. 

Guyau, 179 n. 3, 364 n. 2. 

Gwinner, 210 n. 1. 

Gymnastics, 519 ff. 

Habit, ethical importance of, 241 f. 

Habitation, 515 ff. 

Haldane and Kemp, 209 n. 1. 

Hamann, 164. 

Hamerling, 326. 

Hamlet, his pessimism, 307 n.-l, 335. 

Happiness, 270* ff.; Aristotle's conception 
of, 49. ff. ; Greek and Christian concep- 
tions of, 169 f. ; its influence on char- 
acter, 407 *ff. ; Spinoza's conception of, 
183 f.; Stoics' conception of, 54 f.; vir. 
tueand, 400 * ff. 

Harnack, 65 n. 1, 488 n. 1.; his estimate 
of Catholicism, 125 n. 1. 

Harris, 394 n. 1. 

Hartley, 380 n. 4. 

Hartmann, 215 n. 1, 288 n. 2, 584 n 1. 

Hasbach, 327 n. 1. 



INDEX 



717 



Hase, 68 n. 1; his conception of the char- 
acter of Jesus, 89 ff. 

Hatch, 185 n. 4. 

Haureau, 169 n. 1. 

Health, 383, 506 ff. 

Heartlessness, 648 ff. 

Hedonism, 251 * ff . ; criticism of, 251 ff. ; 
and energism, 223. 

Hedonistic pessimism, 289 ff. 

Hedonists, 251 n. 1. 

Hegel, 204 f., 274, 426 ; his theory of pun- 
ishment, 606 f. 

Hegesias, 257 n. 1. 

Hehn, V., 514 n.l, 595 n. 2. 

Heliand, 119. 

Helvetius, 380 n. 4. 

Herbart, 232, 259, 340 n. 1; his ethics, 
208* f. 

Herder, 189, 554, 668, 705. 

Herodotus, 1, 37 ff. 

Hesiod, his pessimism, 309, 404 f. 

Hettner, 147 n. 1. 

Highest good, 17 ff ., 270 * ff . ; how known, 
10 ff. 

High-mindedness, 579. 

Hiltv, 483 n. 2. 

Hippocrates, 366. 

Hirscher, 178. 

History, optimistic view of, 329 ff . ; pessi- 
mistic view of, 318 ff. ; philosophy of, 
18, 281, 308 ff., 318 ff. 

Hobbes, 185, 244, 274, 340 n. 1, 401, 624; 
his determinism, 455 f. ; his egoism, 380; 
his ethical system, 179 * ff . ; and Galileo, 
179 f . ; his pessimism, 298 ; his political 
system, 143* f., 180 f.; and Shaftesbury, 
188. 

Hodgson, 192 n. 1. 

Hbffding, 29 n. 1, 215 n. 1, 222 n. 1, 253 
n. 1, 275 n. 3, 321 n. 1, 340 n. 1, 341 n. 1, 
343 n. 1, 379 n. 1, 415 n. 1, 505 n. 1, 
569 n. 1, 543 n. 1, 584 n. 1, 606 n. 1, 
627 n. 1, 638 n. 1, 664 n. 1. 

Holbach, 380 n. 4. 

Holland, 599 n. 1. 

Honor, 569* ff., 635; Greek and Christian 
estimates of, 78 f . ; and love of honor, 
569 ff. ; its teleology, 571 ff. 

Hufeland, 506. 

Hugo, V., 611 n. 2. 

Humanists and Luther, 130 f. 

Humanity, idea of, 280 ff . ; love of, 656 ff. 

Humboldt, W. von, 164, 413 f. 

Hume, 251 n. 1, 340 n. 1, 379 n. 1, 402, 
426, 460 n. 1.; his ethics, 189 f . ; on 
suicide, 584 n. 1, 587 f. 

Humility, 573 * ff. ; Greek and Christian 
estimate of, 79. 



Hutcheson, 186, 199, 228 n. 1, 251 n. 1, 

340 n. 1, 379 n. 1. 
Huxley, 192 n. 4, 394 n. 1, 556. 
Hyde, 475 n. 1. 
Hypocrisy, 670. 
Hyslop, 29 n. 1, 35 n. 1, 189 n. 3, 251 n. 1, 

340 n. 1, 415 n. 1, 452 n. 1, 599 n. 1. 

Ideal, in conscience, 368 ff. ; of life, 270 ff. 

Idealism and materialism, 422 ff. 

Ideals, Greek and Christian contrasted, 

87 ff. ; history of, 273 ff. 
Idleness, 530 ff. 

Ignorance, stupidity and, 549 ff. 
Ihering, see Jhering. 
Ill-humor, 500 ff. 
Imitation, 242 f. 
Immortality, belief in, 419 f. ; ethics and, 

439 * ff . 
Impudence, 581. 

Impulse, 343 ff. ; desire and will, 220 f. 
Impulses and virtues, 475 ff. 
Inclination, 346 ff. ; and duty, 340 ff. } 

criticism of Kantian view of, 350 ff. 
Independence of character, 498. 
Indifferent goods, 55. 
Indiscretion, 687. 
Individualism, 134 f., 368 ff.; during the 

Renaissance, 129 ; and Universalism, 

243 ff. 
Individualization of conscience, 368 ff. 
Infallibility of conscience, 357 ff. 
Infidelity and morality, 421 ff. 
Ingratitude, 655 f. 
Injustice, 602 ff. 
Innovations, 690 ff. 
Insanity, moral, 376 n. 1. 
Insolence, 581. 

Instinct and custom, 8 f., 343 ff. 
Instruction, 547 ff. 
Intellect, 58 ff., 67 ff., 266 ff., 543 ff. 
Intellectual activity in Middle Ages, 120 f. 
Intellectual life. 278 f. 
Intelligence, relation of, to feelings, 266 ff . 
Intemperance, 485 ff. 
Intentional deception, 672 ff. 
Intolerance, 635 ff. 
Intoxication, 507 ff. 
Intuitionalism, 192 ; criticism of, 350 * ff . ; 

and utilitarianism, 222 ff. 

Jacobins, 658. 

Jahn, 525. 

James, 253 n. 1, 343 n. 1, 379 n. 1, 452 n. 1, 

544 n. 1, 569 n. 1. 
Janet, 35 n. 1, 340 n. 1, 350 n. 1, 415 n. 1. 
Jesuits, 169 ff., 233 ff., 269. 
Jesus, 326, 330, 334, 410, 420, 619, 697; and 



718 



INDEX 



asceticism, 93 ff. ; and Buddha, 115 ; and 
conscience, 370 f. ; different conceptions 
of his character, 89 f . ; his love of nature, 
165. 

Jewish-Greek philosophy, 109. 

Jhering, 71, 215 n. 1, 222 n. 1, 275 n. 3, 
340 n. 1, 380 n. 1, 517 n. 3, 529 n. 1, 
541 n. 1, 569 n. 1, 599 n. 1, 610, 615 f., 
664 n. 1. 

Job, 410. 

Jodl, 35 n. 1, 179 n. 3, 204, 253 n. 1, 341 
n. 1, 452 n. 1, 710 n. 1. 

John the Baptist, 66. 

Jonas, 205 n. 2. 

Jowett, 41 n. 1, 531 n. 1. 

Judas, 77 ; moral estimate of his suicide, 
591. 

Julian, 82, 159. 

Justice, 599* ff. ; Greek and Christian 
opinion of, 71 f . ; in Middle Ages, 123 f . ; 
negative side of, 599 ff. ; in New Testa- 
ment, 613 ff. ; Plato's conception of, 45 f . ; 
positive side of, 602 ff. ; teleology of, 
602 ff. 

Kant, 222 n. 1, 223, 227 n. 1, 251 n. 1, 
259, 274, 320 n. 1, 321 n. 1, 325, 328, 
340 n. 1, 420, 426, 431, 456, 584 n. 1, 
600 f., 664 n. 1; criticism of, 350 ff. ; and 
English ethics, 194; his ethics, 194 * ff.; 
his estimate of falsehood, 666 ; his con- 
ception of immortality, 440 ff . ; and the 
lie of necessity, 673; his pessimism, 298; 
his theory of punishment, 606, of capital 
punishment, 611 ; his rigorism, 23 f . ; and 
Rousseau, 198 ff.; and utilitarianism, 
198 ff. 

Keim, 98 ; his conception of the character 
of Jesus, 90. 

Keller, 122 n. 1. 

Kempis, Thomas a, 177, 681 n. 1. 

Kepler, 576, 684. 

Kern, 337 n. 1. 

Kidd, 394 n. 1. 

Kierkegaard, 122 n. 1. 

Knowledge, 543 * ff . ; and conduct, 61 f . ; 
development of, 543 f . ; Greek and Chris- 
tian estimate of, 67 f.; of self, 579 ff.; 
value of, 545 ff. 

Kostlin, 35 n. 1, 56 n. 2. 

Krafft-Ebing, 376 n. 1, 508 n. 1. 

Kreibig, 373 n. 1. 

Kuelpe, 452 n. 1. 

Laas, 42 n. 1, 215 n. 1. 

Labor, 529; Greek estimate of, 62 n. 1. 

La Bruyere, 380 n. 4. 

Ladd, 253 n. 1, 341 n. 1, 343 n. 1, 452 n. 1. 



Lagarde, P., 155, 483 n. 2. 

Lamettrie, 380 n. 4. 

Lange, F. A., his view of Christianity, 
162 f. 

Laotsee, 474. 

La Rochefoucauld, 380 n. 4, 593, 655; his 
pessimism, 298. 

Laspeyres, 517 n. 1. 

Law, morality and, 627 ff. ; morality, reli- 
gion, and, 415 ff. 

Law-suit, Christian conception of the, 72. 

Lear, 581. 

Lecky, 65 n. 1, 85 f., 98 n. 1, 109, 179 n. 3, 
251 n. 1, 222 n. 1, 340 n. 1, 488 n. 1, 584 
n. 1, 587 n. 1, 638 n. 1. 

Lehrfreiheit, 706 ff. 

Leibniz, 274, 321 n. 1, 401, 426, 456, 460 
n. 1, 684; his conception of evil, 332; 
and the modern spirit, 144 f. 

Leo X., 129. 

Leopardi, his pessimism, 287. 

Lessing, 320 n. 1, 483 n. 2, 696. 

Lex divina and lex naturae, 172 f., 178. 

Liberalism and conservatism, 690 ff. 

Liberality, Greek and Christian estimates 
of, contrasted, 82 ff. 

Lichtenberg, 707. 

Lie of necessity, 672 * ff . ; Greek view of, 
682 f. ; modern view of, 682 ff. 

Lies, 664 ff. 

Life, an end in itself, 294 ff. 

Liszt, Fr., 630, 

Locke, 251 n. 1, 340 n. 1, 486, 533. 

Locrians, 665, 695. 

Lombroso, 446, 481 n. 1. 

Long, 55 n. 1. 

Lotze, 193 n. 1, 233, 426, 460 n. 1 ; his 
criticism of Schleiermacher, 208. 

Louis XIV., 272. 

Love, 638 * ff . ; of country, 656 ff . ; of ene- 
mv, 616 ff. ; of home, 656 ff . ; of humanity, 
656 ff . ; of neighbor, 599, 638 * ff. ; tele- 
ology of, 652 ff. ; of truth, 689 f. 

Lubbock, 523. 

Lucian, 62 n. 1. 

Lucretius, 56 n. 1, 57 f. 

Luthardt, 35 n. 1, 65 n. 1. 

Luther, 121, 129 ff., 420, 577, 658, 668; oa 
free-will, 455. 

Luxuries, 538 ff. 

Lying, 664 * ff . ; why wrong, 666 ff . 

Mackenzie, 29 n. 1, 193 * 251 n. 1, 320 
n. 1, 350 n. 1, 379 n. 1, 415 n. 1, 452 n. 1« 
599 n. 1. 

Mackintosh, 179 n. 3. 
Magnanimity, 616 ff. 
Magnificence, 83. 



INDEX 



719 



Mainlander, 288 a. 2, 584 n. 1. 

Malice, 648 ff. 

Mandeville, 189, 327 n. 1, 380 n. 4. 

Manichaeans, 332. 

Manual training, 526 f. 

Manzoni, 490. 

Marcus Aurelius, 106, 107 ff., 218, 411; his 
estimate of Christianity, 100. 

Marion, 29 n. 1. 

Marriage, Christian view of, 86 f. 

Martensen, 179, 437, 674. 

Martineau, 35 n. 1, 192 n. 4, 222 n. 1, 224 
n. 1, 227 n. 1, 251 n. 1, 340 n. 1, 342 n. 2, 
452 n. 1. 

Martius, 510 n. 1. 

Martyrdom, 690 ff . ; necessity of, in history, 
695 f. 

Masaryk, 584 n. 1. 

Materialism and idealism, 422 ff. 

Maxwell, 185 n. 3. 

Meal, 506. 

Means and ends, 275 ff. 

Mediaeval conception of life, 116 ff. ; eth- 
ics, 169 ff. 

Menander, 410. 

Menoikeus, 56. 

Menzies, 65 n. 1. 

Mephistopheles and evil, 328 ff. 

Merit and duty, 377 ff. 

Metaphysics, morality and, 421 ff. ; Paul- 
sen's, 219 ff. 

Metropolis, influence of, on mode of life, 
491, 519 ff. 

Meyr, M., 290. 

Middle Ages, 21 f. ; their conception of life, 
116 * ff . ; ethical systems of, 169 * ff. 

Middleman, 127 n. f. 

Mill, James, 190 * f., 251 n. 1, 340 n. 1; on 
pleasure and desire, 254 f. 

Mill, J. S., 191 * f., 222 n. 1, 223, 251 n. 1, 
275, 340 n. 1, 354, 379 n. 1, 427, 599 n. 1; 
his optimism, 316 f. 

Milton, his conception of art, 558 n. 1. 

Miracles, religion and, 435 ff. ; science and, 
435 ff. 

Modern ethics, 179 ff. 

Modesty, 491 ff., 581 ff. 

Moeser, 612. 

Monasticism, 85, 100, 116 f., 119 ff., 133, 
168, 488 ff. 

Monotheism, 418 f. 

Moral evil and physical evil, 322 * ff.; 
moral insanity, 376 n. 1, 481; moral in- 
struction, 25 ff., 40 f., 476 ff., 483 ff., 
498; moral law and natural law, 13 ff., 
225 f., 348 f., 362 f., 376, 448 f.; moral 
laws not strictly universal, 19 ff., 233 ff., 
357 ft'.; nihilism, 373 ff.; moral preach- j 



ing, 23 f., 47, 55, 478 ff., 489 f.; moral 

training, 476 ff. ; moral philosophy, see 

Ethics. 
Moralistic pessimism, 297 ff. 
Morality, law and, 627 ff . ; metaphysics 

and, 421 ff. ; religion and, 415 ff. ; of 

Rome, 101 ff. 
More, Thomas, his Utopia, 588 n. 1. 
Morley, J., 664 n. 1. 
Morselli, 584 ff. 
Moses, 614. 
Motives, egoistic and altruistic, 381 ff . ; and 

morality of acts, 227 ff. 
Muirhead, 29 n. 1, 193 * n. 1, 251 n. 1, 321 

n. 1, 350 n. 1. 
Munro, 56 n. 1. 

Miinsterberg, 29 n. 1, 340 n. 1, 452 n. 1. 
Murray, 251 n. 1. 

Nationalism in Middle Ages, 124. 

Natural law and moral law, 13 ff. 

Natural rights, 624 ff . 

Naturalism and supernaturalism, 165 f. 

Necessity, lie of, 672 ff . ; law of, 631 f. 

Neo-Platonists, 589 ; precursors of, 109. 

Neo-Pythagoreans, 109. 

Nero, 100. 

Neumann, 17 n. 1. 

New truths, reception of, 690 ff. 

Nibelungenlied and Iliad, 119. 

Nietzsche, 28, 47, 65, 371 n. 1, 606 n. 1, 
664 n. 1; and Christianity, 150 ff. ; his 
egoism, 380; his immoralism, 150 ff. ; his 
influence on young, 153 ff. 

Nihilism, moral, 373 ff. ; theoretical, 424. 

Noack, 474. 

Nordau, 373 n. 1, 664 n. 1, 709. 

Notrecht, 632 f. 

Nova Atlantis, Bacon's, 137 ff. 

Nutrition, 506 ff. 

Oaths, 671. 

Objective and subjective morality, 370 ff. 

CEdipus, 411. 

Oettingen, 215 n. 1, 515 n. 1, 529 n. 1, 
543 n. 1, 584 n. 1, 606 n. 1, 638 n. 1. 

Old age, 113 f., 296 f., 335, 443; and pes- 
simism, 309. 

Oldenberg, 114 n. 1. 

Optimism, 182, 301* ff., 321 * ff., 400 ff.; 
in age of enlightenment, 146 f. 

Orderliness, 499. 

Oriental religions in Rome, 111 f. 

Orthodoxy, 670. 

Overbeck, 124 n. 1. 

Over-education, 549 ff. 

Pain, as motive, 257 ff. ; function ot, 
264 f. ; and pleasure, 291 ff . 



720 



INDEX 



Paley, 192* n. 1, 251 n. 1, 340 n. 1, 380 n. 
4, 483 n. 1, 529 n. 1, 584 n. 1, 599 n. 1, 
638 n. 1. 

Partisanship, 239, 601 f. 

Patience, 499 f. 

Patriotism, 656 ff . ; in education, 660 ff. 

Paul, 614 ; and justice, 72; his conception of 
life, 66 f. ; his doctrine of love, 651; his 
opinion of marriage, 86 f . ; his pessimism, 
405 ; and the pursuit of pleasure, 75. 

Paulsen, 321 n. 1, 415 n. 2, 460 n. 1, 545 
n. 1. 

Peck, 106 n. 1. 

Penal right, 604. 

Penzig, 453 n. 1. 

Perfection, 4, 10 ff., 17 ff., 201 f., 223 f., 
251 ff., 270 * ff., Stoic idea of, 54. " 

Perjury, 670 f. 

Perseverance, 498 f . 

Personal liberty, 635; and drunkenness, 
507 ff. 

Personality, 468. 

Perthes, 645 n. 1. 

Pertz, 670 n. 1. 

Peschel, 127 n. 1. 

Pessimism, 210, 246 f., 287* ff., 402 ff.; 
criticism of, 148 ff. ; in nineteenth cen- 
tury, 147 ff. 

Pestalozzi, 240. 

Petrarch, his character, 213 f. 

Petronius, 102. 

Pfaffentum, 122. 

Philo, 109. 

Philosophy, 369, 542 ff., 545; and ethics 
among the Greeks, 58 ff. ; of history, 
pessimistic view of, 308 ff. ; in Roman 
Empire, 109 f. 

Physical culture, 505 ff. 

Pity, 592* ff.; Christian, 81 f. 

Plato, 39 n. 1, 251 n. 1, 273, 279, 371 f., 
373 n. 1, 426, 531 f ., 682 ; and asceticism, 
47 f.; his ethics, 41* ff.; his politics, 46 
ff. ; and schoolmen, 43; and Sophists, 
42 f. 

Play, 487, 519 ff., 556 ff. 

Pleasure, as end of life, 251 * ff . ; as un- 
conscious end of action, 255 ff. ; Chris- 
tian conception of, 75 f. ; Epicurus's con- 
ception of, 56 ff. ; as freedom from pain, 
291 ff. ; function and significance of, 
265 f. ; our judgment of, as absolute end, 
268 ff. ; Luther's conception of, 130; 
Paul's conception of, 75; Plato's con- 
ception of, 47 f . ; Stoic conception of, 
54. 

Pleasure-theory, 251 ff. 

Plotinus, 109, 321 n. 1. 

Pliimanher, 287 n. 1. 



Poetry, in Middle Ages, 118 f. 

Politeness, 648 ff., 680 f. 

Political life and Greek ethics, 62 ff. 

Politics, 143 f. 

Pollock, 415 n. 1. 

Poly crates, 412. 

Polytheism, 418. 

Pontius Pilate, 300. 

Porter, 192* n. 4, 194 n. 1, 475 n. 1, 483 
n. 3, 505 u. 1, 529 n. 1, 543 n. 1, 569 n. 1, 
584 n. 1, 592 n. 1, 599 n. 1, 638 n. 1, 
664 n. 1. 

Positive right, 603 ff.j teleological neces- 
sity of, 603 ff. 

Positivism and religion, 446 ff. 

Poverty, crime and, 541 n. 1; and the 
economic virtues, 540 ff. 

Practical knowledge, 543 f. 

Practical value of ethics, 25 ff. 

Practice and theory, 1 ff . 

Preaching the truth, 702 ff. 

Predestination, 455. 

Pride, 573 f. ; Greek and Christian estimates 
of, 79 f. 

Primary school, 548. 

Primitive Christianity and mediaeval Chris- 
tianity, 121 ff. 

Private right, 604. 

Procrastination, 499. 

Prodigality, 536 ff. 

Profession, 530 ff. 

Professional education, 547 ff. 

Proletarianism, 530. 

Property rights, 634 f. 

Prosperity and virtue, 400 f. 

Protagoras, 40. 

Protestant ethics, 178 f. 

Prudence and virtue, 40 f . 

Pudor, 581. 

Punishment, 606 * ff . ; intuitionalistic view 
of, 606 f. ; and responsibility, 460 ff . ; 
teleological view of, 607 ff. 

Pusillanimity, 578 ff. 

Quietism, 332 ff. 

Ransom, 90 n. 3. 

Rationalism, empiricism and, in ethics, 

6 ff.; and the Reformation, 134 f. 
Rationalistic view of conscience, 445 ff. 
Realism in literature, 303 ff. 
Reason, 181 ff., 277 f., 468 ff. ; as source of 

moral knowledge, 11 f.; and impulse, 

476 ff. 
Recreation, 527 f. 
R6e, 215 n. 1, 340 n. 1, 364. 
Reformation, 126* ft'.; and church life, 

131 ff. ; and civilization, 130 ft.; and 



INDEX 



721 



rationalism, 134 f.; and Renaissance, 

difference between, 130 ff. 
Regulus, 247. 
Religion, 60 ff., 113 ff.; and art, 429, 558; 

and miracles, 435 ff. ; and morality, 161, 

345 f., 415* ff., 492; nature of, 417 ff., 

431 ff., and science, 431 ff. 
Religious instruction, 126 ff., 708 ff. 
Remorse, 240, 340, 620 f. 
Renaissance, 126 * ff., 558, 563 ff. 
Renan, 178 ; his conception of the character 

of Jesus, 90 f. 
Responsibility, 460 ff. 
Rest, 527 f. 

Retaliation, 242 f., 616 ff. 
Reuschle, 576 n. 1, 684. 
Reuter, Fritz, his optimism, 302 f. 
Revenge, impulse of, 619 f. 
Reverence, 431 ff. 
Reviewers, 582 f., 623 f., 665. 
Revolution, 690 f. 
Richter, 303. 
Riehl, 452 n. 1. 
Rights, 599, 603 * ff . ; natural, 624 ff. ; the 

principle of, 624 ff.; the different spheres 

of, 633 ff. 
Ritchie, 599 n. 1. 
Rolph, 257 n. 1. 
Roman Empire, 523 f.; conversion of, to 

Christianity, 100 ff. 
Roman morals, 101 ff. 
Romans, 483 n. 3. 
Romanticism, 310. 
Rothe, 178. 
Rousseau, 202, 340 n. I, 480, 505 n. 1, 

656; Kant and, 198 ff.; his practice 

and his preaching, 214; his pessimism, 

148, 314 ff.; his philosophy of history, 

309. 
Rousselot, 169 n. 1. 
Riickert, 313 n. 1, 355, 481, 696. 
Runze, 29 n. 1, 215 n. 1, 321 n. 1, 415 n. 1, 

475 n. 1, 480 n. 1, 483 n. 1, 505 n. 1, 

519 n. 1, 529 n. 1, 540 n. 1, 543 n. 1, 

569 n. 1, 584 n. 1, 592 n. 1, 599 n. 1, 606 

n. 1, 638 n. 1, 664 n. 1. 
Rupprecht, 517 n. 1. 
Russia, 523. 



Sacraments, 66 f. 

Sacrifice, 388 f . ; Christian, 159 f . 

gical explanation of, 247 f . 
Sailer, 178. 
Saints, 85, 166, 178. 
Salter, 483 n. 2. 
Sand, 230. 

Santayana, 251 n. 1, 519 n. 1. 
Sardanapalus, 39, 375. 



teleolo- 



Satiety of life, 171, 376. 

Savonarola, 84; Villari's Life of, 97 n. 1. 

Schadenfreude, 593 f. 

Schelling, 310. 

Schiller, 355; his relation to Kant, 202 f.; 
his ridicule of Kant's rigorism, 351 ff. 

Schleiermacher, 178, 274; his ethical sys- 
tem, 205 * ff. ; his view of capital punish- 
ment, 611; his conception of moral law 
as natural law, 17 n. 1. 

Schmidt L., 35 n. 1, 58, 371 n. 1, 400, 496, 
579, 587 n. 1, 665, 671. 

Scholasticism, 120 f., 454 f. 

School, function of, 547 ff. 

Schoolmen and Plato, 43. 

Schopenhauer, 209 * ff., 257 n. 1, 426, 478, 
569 n. 1, 580, 584 n. 1. 589, 682, 700; 
his altruism, 379 ff. ; and Buddhism, 115; 
hie character, 211 ff. ; and Christianity, 
164; on compassion, 598; on egoism, 246 
f . ; on free-will, 453 ; his pessimism, 
147 ff., 287 ff. ; his practice and his 
preaching, 210 ff . ; on the practical value 
of ethics, 25 f. 

Schremph, 122 n. 1. 

Schuppe, 215 n. 1. 

Schurman, 29 n. 1, 192 n. 5, 194 n. 1, 342 
n. 1, 415 n. 1. 

Schwarz, 340 n. 1. 

Schweinichen, 510. 

Schweitzer, 205 n. 2. 

Science, Bacon and, 137 ff . ; Christian and 
modern estimates of, 136 ff.; function 
of, 543 ff. ; religion and, 431 ff. ; theism 
and, 425 ff. ; classified as theoretical and 
practical, 1 ff. 

Secondary school, 548. 

Secularization of Christianity, 121 ff. 

Seidlitz, 583. 

Selby-Bigge, 189 n. 3. 

Self-conceit, see "Vanity. 

Self-control, 483 * ff. ; Greek admiration 
of, 483 n. 2; Plato's conception of, 
45. 

Self-education, 468 f., 477 f. 

Selfishness, 648 ff. 

Self-knowledge, 579 ff. 

Self-preservation, 179 ff., 185, 248, 271, 
380, 388, 569. 

Self-sacrifice, 247 f., 338 f. 

Seneca, 100, 106 *, 523, 587 n. 2. 

Semi-refinement, semi-culture, 549 ff. 

Sense of justice, 602. 

Sense-perception, 266 f., 543 f. 

Servile-mindedness, 577 f . 

Seth, J., 29 n. 1, 35 n. 1, 193 * n. 1, 251 
n. 1, 415 n. 1, 452 n. 1, 485 n. 1, 543 a 
1, 592 n. 1, 599 n. 1. 



722 



INDEX 



Shaftesbury, 274, 340 n. 1; 379 n. 1, 402. 

Shakespeare, 307 n. 1, 669. 

Shamanism, 417 f. 

Sidgwick, 29 n. 1, 35 n. 1, 193 *, 222 n. 1, 
251 n. 1, 256 n. 1, 379 n. 1, 452 n. 1, 459 
n. 1, 475 n. 1, 483 n. 1, 592 n. 1, 599 n. 1, 
638 n. 1, 664 n. 1 ; on conscience, 368. 

Sigwart, 215 n. 1, 452 n. 1. 

Silence, Christian injunction of, 76. 

Simmel, 29 n. 1, 215 n. 1, 251 n. 1, 340 n. 1, 
379 n. 1. 

Sin, Christian conception of, 158 f. 

Sincerity, 689 ff., 705 n. 2. 

Sitte, 343 ff. 

Slander, 669 f. 

Slavery, in Middle Ages, 124. 

Smyth, 179 * n. 2, 340 n. 1, 379 n. 1, 415 
n. 1, 483 n. 1, 543 n. 1, 599 n. 1, 664 n. 1. 

Sneath, 179 n. 4. 

Social virtues, 278 f . ; and evolution, 394 ff. 

Socrates, 51 f., 326, 411, 682; his con- 
science, 371 n. 1; his ethics, 39* ff. ; 
and Sophists, 40. 

Soldan, 142. 

Solon and Croesus, 37 ff. 

Sommer, 287 n. 1. 

Sophists, 40 ff., 373 n. 1; and Plato, 42 f. ; 
and Socrates, 40. 

c-ax^pocrvVTj, 483 ff. 

Specialism, religion and, 434. 

Speculative Philosophy, 204 ff., 429. 

Speech, Christian estimate of, 76. 

Spencer, 1, 71 n. 1, 193 * 249 n. 1, 507 n. 
2, 340 n. 1, 346 n. 1, 379 n. 1, 427, 483 n. 
1, 485 n. 1, 506 n. 1, 519 n. 1, 529 n. 
1, 543 n. 1, 592 n. 1, 599 n. 1, 638 n. 1, 
664 n. 1 ; on egoism and altruism, 395 ff. 

Spener, 420. 

Spinoza, 274, 307, 354, 384, 401, 406, 426, 
428, 598, 606 n. 1, 619 ; and Aristotle, 
52; his egoism, 380; his ethical system, 
181 * ff. ; his conception of evil, 332 ; 
on free-will, 456. 

Spiritual life and culture, 543 ff. 

State, church and, in Middle Ages, 120 ; 
Greek and Christian estimates of, 72 ff. ; 
modern theory of, 143 f. 

Statius, 104. 

Staudlin, 584 n. 1. 

Stein, Freiherr von, 577, 669. 

Steiner, 371 n. 1. 

Steinthal, 215 n. 1, 259, 415 n. 1, 452 n. 1. 

Stephen, 29 n. 1, 179 n. 3, 193 * 222 n. 1, 
233 n. 1, 275 n. 1, 340 n. 1, 379 n. 1, 
452 n. 1, 485 n. 1, 495 n. 1, 592 n. 1, 599 
n. 1, 664 n. 1. 

Sterrett, 205 n. 1,607 n. 1. 

Stiruer, 373 n. 1. 



Stockl, 169 n. 1. 

Stoics, 273, 321 n. 1, 492 ff., 587, 598, 682; 
their ethical system, 53 * ff . ; their con- 
ception of goods, 277; Roman, 106 ff. 

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 483 n. 2. 

Strauss, 709 ; his conception of character 
of Jesus, 90 n. 5, 91 f. ; his opinion of 
Christianity, 156. 

Stnimpell, 481 n. 1. 

Stupidity, ignorance and, 549 ff. 

Subjective and objective judgments of 
acts, 227 ff. 

Subjective morality, 370 ff. 

Success and virtue, 400 ff. 

Suffering, 163 f., 259 ff., 321 ff., 410 ff. ; 
Christian notion of, 157 f. 

Suicide, 584 * ff. ; causes of, 590 ff.; civili- 
zation and, 584 ff . ; how judged morallv, 
586 ff. 

Sully, 287 n. 1, 341 n. 1, 343 n. 1, 452 n. 1. 

Sulzer, 300. 

Superciliousness, 578 ff. 

Supernaturalism and naturalism, 165 f. 

Superstition, 435. 

Symonds, 127 n. 1. 

Svmpathetic pain and pleasure, 593 ff. 

Sympathy, 248, 278, 592 * ff., 638 ff. 

Taine, 299. 

Taylor, B., 328 n. 1, 329 n. 1, n. 2, n. 3. 

Taylor, T., 599 n. 1. 

Tedium, 532. 

Teleological and intuitionalistic ethics, 

222 ff. 
Temperance, 484* ff. ; Greek and Christian 

conceptions of, contrasted, 74 ff. 
Tenement-houses, 516 f . 
Tertullian, 117, 121; his estimate of eour« 

age ; 70 ; on temporal power, 74. 
Thackeray, 304. 
Theatre in Rome, 105 f. 
Theism, 422 f . 

Themistocles, his suicide, 588 ff. 
Theodicy, 321 *ff. 
Theognis, 407 n. 1. 
Theological ethics, 169 ff. 
Theology and free-will, 454 f . 
Theoretical knowledge, 545 ff. 
Theories of life, 33 ff. 
Theorv and pi-actice, 1 ff. 
Thilly", 35 n. 1, 219 n. 1, 415 n. 2, 452 n. 1. 
Thomas Aquinas, 273 f., 431, 454 n. 3. 
Thomas a Kempis, 490 n. 1, 681 n. 1. 
Thucydides, 154 n. 1. 
Tille, 151 n. 1. 
Tipping, 541. 
Tobacco, 513 ff. 
Tonnies, 179 n. 4, 215 n. 1, 599 n. 1. 



INDEX 



723 



Toleration, 635 ff. 

Tolstoi, 122 n. 1, 514 f., 524 f. 

Trajan, 97, 104. 

Tranquilitas anirni. Spinoza's, 183. 

Transcendent, 161 ff., 447 f. 

Truth, 664* ff. ; and expediency, 672 ff. 

Truthfulness, 664 ff. 

Turgenev, 373 n. 1. 

Twesten, 205 n. 2. 

v£p t s, 407 f., 411, 579. 
Uebermensch, 152 f. 
Ueberweg, 35 n. 1, 162 f. 
Uhlhorn, 74 n. 2, 103, 157 n. 1, 646. 
Uniform, 518. 
Universal morality, 19 ff. 
University, 548. 
Unpretendingness, 491 ff. 
Utilitarianism, 191 f., 222 ff. 
Utopias, 137 ff., 143 f. 

Valentini, 541 n. 1, 652 n. 1, 671 n. 1. 

Vanity, 574 ff. 

Vegetarianism, 515. 

Veitch, 142 n. 1. 

Veracity, 664* ff . ; among the Greeks, 
682; among the moderns, 682 f. ; nega- 
tive, 664 ff . ; positive, 685 ff. 

Villari, 97 n. 1. 

Vilmar, 371 n. 1. 

Virtue, Aristotle's definition of, 52; and 
happiness or success, 400 ff. ; can it be 
taught ? 40 f., 478 ff. ; and vice, 249. 

Virtues, 475 * ff. ; classification of, 481 f . ; 
Greek and Christian estimate of, 68 f. ; 
and vices, 475 fF. 

Voight, 127 n. 1, 213 f. 

Volksschule, 548. 

Voltaire, 376. 

Vorlander, 179 n. 3. 

Wackernagel, 686 n. 1. 
Waitz, 416. 
War, 395 ff., 675. 
Ward, 454 n. 1. 
Watson, 35 n. 1. 

Wealth, Christian estimate of, 77 f.; and 
the economic virtues, 540 ff. 



Weariness of life, 171, 376. 

Weber, A., 35 n. 1, 48 n. 1, 56 n. 1, 324 

n. 1. 
Weber, W., 114 n. 1. 
Weiuholdt, 119. 

Welfare, 4 f., 10 ff., 223 f., 251 ff. 
Welldon, 36 n. 1. 
Wellington, Duke of, 549. 
Whewell, 179 n. 3, 192 *. 
White, 181 n. 2. 
Wieland, 261 ff. 
Wiese, 475 n. 1, 683. 
Will, custom and, 343 ff. ; education of, 

483 ff. ; and feeling, 221; freedom of, 

452 ff. ; impulse, and desire, 220 f . ; and 

intellect, 220 f. ; Schopenhauer's theory 

of, 292 f . 
Williams, 179 n. 3, 275 n. 3, 320 n. 1, 

379 n. 1. 
Wilson, see Fowler and Wilson. 
Windelband, 35 n. 1. 
Wisdom, 45, 503 f. 
Wolf, F. A., 438. 
Wolff, Christian, 401, 456; his ethical 

system, 193 * f . 
Woman, disposition of, 499, 598; education 

of, 522 ff . 
Women's rights, 625 f. 
Work, Greek estimate of, 62 ff . ; and play, 

519 ff. 
Wundt, 29 n. 1, 35 n. 1, 204, 215 n. 1, 

222 n. 1, 275 n. 3, 340 n. 1, 344 n. 1, 

415 n. 1, 416 n. 1, 452 n. 1, 505 n, 1, 

506, 529 n. 1, 543 n. 1, 569 n. 1, 592 n. 1, 

599 n. 1, 606 n. 1, 638 n. 1. 

Xenophon, 37 n. 1. 

Yonge, 56 n. 3. 
York, General, 361 f. 

Zeller, 35 n. 1, 109, 194 n. 1, 215 n. 1. 

Ziegler, H., 98 n. 1. 

Ziegler, T., 35 u. 1, 65 n. 1, 215 n. 1, 275 

n. 3. 
Zollner, 365 n. 1. 
Zola, 508 n. 1. 



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